SCVAL is a treat (not a trick!)

Monta Vista headed back up the freeway to our favorite course, Crystal Springs, and the SCVAL championships on Halloween, 2023.

After two years of rain, wind, and mud, SCVAL was held in near-perfect conditions.  Under sunny skies, the JV boys lead off the day.  MVXC has a young group of boys; no other team in the league has as many freshmen in their top seven.  Monta Vista’s top freshman, Kento Murase, had an impressive race, taking 17th place out of 132 finishers with a furious kick that almost edged out 16.  Kento’s 18:52 mark is a 41-second improvement from a month ago at Preview.  Qi Huang is a sophomore, but also a first-year runner, and he scored a PR as he finished in 52nd place.  Aidan Cushman-Kihnley, Cam Polidoro, Ethan Wang, Simha Satoor, and Isaac Yan completed the top seven for the JV boys as they took fifth place.  This group, combined with a young varsity team, could go far over the next few years.  

The JV girls were up next.  First-year runner Rita Bondar has been trying different race strategies over the past few weeks, and everything came together on Tuesday at SCVALs.  Rita was in 9th place at the top of the first loop and running strong, and she held that spot to the finish with a steady pace:  Rita’s ninth-place finish earned all-league honors, MVXC’s first of the day.  Junior Manasi Prasad came in looking horrible–but only because of a very appropriate Halloween costume!  Manasi had a  25:18, improving 41 seconds from last month.  Mira Ram, Hemani Kamarshi, and Siran Gao completed the scoring for the JV girls’ squad.  Siran’s finish was remarkable; while she did not catch the Homestead runner in the end, she left everything she had on the trail.  It was less than a second between the two athletes.  If the finish line was 20 feet further along, Siran gets the pass…the MVXC coaches saw the whole thing and were going nuts yelling for Siran’s effort.

The varsity boys knew they would need to push to advance from SCVALs, and came out strong.  Tanay Parikh hung with the leaders all day and ended up with an outstanding third-place finish with a  15:53 mark.   That PR moves Tanay to 8th all-time in the Monta Vista record book for Crystal Springs.  Monta Vista’s second runner on Tuesday, Ryan Liu, is a junior but also a first-year cross runner.  Ryan’s focus and dedication stood out to teammates and coaches all year, and it’s hard not to think about where Ryan would be if he had been running all through high school.  The positive reframing is to think about how steep Ryan’s improvement curve will be!  Ryan is on an upward path, and his senior year could be special.  Two sophomores, Rishi Salvi and Soham Beesetti, were next in for MVXC, with Juniors Darren Lin and Ruhaan Shah next.  Monta Vista’s top six come back next year, and two sophomores often see significant improvements after two years of work and growth.  While the boys missed advancing to CCS by a mere 15 points, they are set up for a big jump in 2023.  The MVXC low stick, Tanay Parikh, goes to CCS as an individual.

The last race of the day featured our varsity girls.  Anika Bhandarkar and Miranda Hsu were up front, giving MVXC two low sticks as they have all season long.  Anika ran a brilliant tactical race.  While the front pack went out in a blistering six-minute opening mile, Anika was content to stalk them, coming through a mile and a quarter in 9th place.  With 800m to go, she had passed a half-dozen of the early leaders and was racing two Gatos runners.  Ultimately, Anika broke up the Wildcats leaders and took second place.  Anika’s 19:12 was an incredible 1:35 personal record, making her 14th all-time for MVXC at Crystal.  Miranda and senior Margaux Francoeur were next in for MVXC, earning all-league honors along with Anika.   Valerie Ayzenberg and Madi Polidoro completed the scoring, followed by Katie Lee and Megan Nieh.  The MVXC girls’ strong performance earned them a second-place finish in the league and a ticket to the CCS championships on November 11.

Personal records matter!  What matters most is how far we travel, not where we end up.  Twenty-two of Monta Vista’s athletes recorded personal records on Tuesday and all deserve recognition for the hard work that got them there:

Personal Records Set By MVXC

Complete results are posted.  There are photos from Mr. Slaney.

Central Coast Section will be on Saturday, November 11.

Don’t forget to RSVP for the season banquet!

^Looks like a rough fall but Manasi finished anyway! 🙂