The SCVAL Winter cross country series continued with a 2.2 mile race at Los Gatos High School on Saturday, February 27.
The Los Gatos campus covers a lot of area, and the running course toured much of the interesting twists and turns, including all the athletic fields and the front lawn. A little after noon, the Monta Vista athletes entered the track stadium to prepare for a match against FUHSD rival Lynbrook.
Wave 1, while missing last week’s leader Rohun Agrawal, went out fast with two Lynbrook runners setting a hard pace and rapidly gapping the field. The chase pack settled into a solid pace, and ended up in a fairly tight group about half a minute back of the two Lynbrook leaders. Monta Vista was lead by junior Andrew Cole and sophomore Alex Nguyen, who finished 3rd and 5th in the dual meet. Sahil Goel, freshman Denny Dong, Pranav Reddy and Justin Yu all finished less than 40 seconds behind Andrew. All six of these boys had average mile paces at least 11 seconds per mile faster than the prior week while racing at Los Altos–a good sign that the team is finding it’s racing legs.
Like the boys, the girls also showed improvement over the prior week–all of the top five finishers (Sylvana Northrop, Ellie Hsu, Sydney Stevens and freshmen Margaux Francoeur and Valerie Ayzenberg) had faster mile paces than a week before. Sylvana’s 12:53 mark (5:51 per mile) mark was the third fastest time of any girl on the day, and the next four girls were in a 30-second pack.
The girls team ended up taking 6th place in the league, just like last week, even with a few athletes out for the PSAT. The boys finished 11th, and look forward to the return of Rohun Agrawal next week at Homestead.
During this pandemic season, we want to compete hard, improve each week, and refine our training habits and racing skills so that we are ready for a complete season in August. With all of the MVXC top runners getting faster week to week, that shows that we are moving in the right direction–we are getting more fit, and we are improving our racing ability. We are figuring out where we are, setting goals, and supporting each other while staying safe during the pandemic. Well done! This is really good work so far this season.
Complete results are posted on the Lynbrook Sports site, and on XCStats. Malcolm Slaney has taken photos again this week and these photos are available for viewing and download.
For the March 6 race at Homestead, information is not yet finalized. Monta Vista will be racing against Los Altos at approximately 12:30pm. Coach will have final information on Thursday or Friday, and more info will be posted on the Lynbrook site.
