Monta Vista Impresses in Sunnyvale

(Revised) I know, for the whole weekend we thought we won the meet overall, but the score ended up changing favoring Leigh High School. But Monta Vista came home with a 2nd place overall finish and that’s something to be very proud of!

This past Saturday, our combined Monta Vista team came out 2nd out of 30 teams at Fremont High School’s 11th Firebird Relays Invitational, scoring 298 points. Westmoor High School also scored 298 points, however, we had the edge when you break it down by division. Our Varsity girls won their division, F/S girls were 3rd (Westmoor was 6th), Varsity boys 8th (Westmoor was 1st), and our F/S boys were 2nd (Westmoor 3rd) – we won more divisions so that breaks the tie giving us 2nd instead of 3rd! Looking at how that shook out, do you see how literally every point matters? That’s why your coaches preach it!

It was a pretty hit-or-miss day weather-wise with bouts of rain dumping throughout the morning and early afternoon. If you look at the 4th picture in the gallery above, you can see what the triple jump pit looked like, which resulted in a cancellation of the girls triple jump. But that didn’t stop us from competing at a high level, setting nearly 30 new PRs (see bottom of post). I think a lot of the reason why we had such a great day comes down to what I talked about after the meet last Thursday – we’re having fun as a team! During the meet this weekend I saw kids gathered around in the infield hanging out, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company. Then when a race featured a Matador, they would pop up and cheer loudly for their teammates. I heard kids showing genuine interest in how their teammate’s event was, not just the time or mark, but how they felt competing. This is what it’s about, y’all! Let’s build on this attitude and let it carry us to a league championship!

Girls Performance

Lelani Laruelle and Alice Ross were the leaders on the Varsity side, capturing 3 individual wins between them. Laruelle won the long and high jumps while Ross took the discus throw. Our top 10 finishers included a 2nd place finish by Anika Bhandarkar in the 3200m, 3rd place for Katie Lee in the 100m, 3rd place in the long jump for Dylan Hwang, 4th place in the 300m H for Raji Kenyan, 4th place in the 1600m for Bhandarkar, 4th place for Ross in the shot put, Valerie Azyenberg in the 800m for 7th place, 7th place to Hwang in the high jump, and 9th place in the 100m H for Kenyan. Great work, girls!

Allie Rummelhoff led the F/S girls team winning both the shot put and discus throw! Other top 10 finishers were Miranda Hsu taking 2nd in the 3200m, Jasmine Zhao taking 7th in the discus throw, Mira Ram in 9th for the 800m, Rummelhoff in 9th for the high jump, Lauren Moore in 10th in the long jump, and Rita Bonadar placing 10th in the 800m.

Boys Performance

The Varsity boys were led by Tanay Parikh who won the 3200m. Other standout performances were Denny Dong taking 2nd place in the 400m and 4th in the 800m, Parikh in 5th in the 1600m, Ethan Zhu taking 5th in the 110m H, Ryan Liu placing 7th in the 3200m, Zhu 8th in the 300mH, and Jeffrey Song placing 8th in the 100m.

The F/S boys were led by Alex Frefel who won the 300m H, Graham Ischo who won the shot put, and Ryan Shen who soared above the rest of the competition in the high jump. Other notable performances included a pair of 2nd place finished by Agasthya Kothuri in the triple and long jumps as well as a 3rd place finish in the high jump, Adam Abdelrahman taking 3rd in the discus throw and 6th in the shot put, Eddie Fan placing 6th in the discus throw, Ischo taking 7th in the discus throw, a 7th place finish by Ethan Yang in the triple jump, and Fan placing 9th in the shot put.

We are in action next at Santa Clara High School on Wednesday, March 27th at 3:30pm for more league action!

26 Overall PRs!

Girls PRs (7)

Katie Lee – 100m
Mira Ram – 800m
Anika Bhandarkar – 3200m
Miranda Hsu – 3200m
Dylan Hwang – Long Jump
Zoe Laruelle – Long Jump
Rafaela Maglaque – Long Jump

Boys PRs (19)