MVTF on a Roll

It was a pretty great week for Monta Vista Track & Field last week as we faced off against Santa Clara in dual meet competition and took athletes to the Stanford Invitational as well as the Quicksilver Classic Invitational. At Santa Clara, the Varsity boys got their first dual meet win of the season! The Varsity and JV girls also took the top spots and JV boys fell to the Bruins. Dual meet records for each division are: Varsity girls 4-0, JV girls 3-1, Varsity boys 1-3, JV boys 2-2. Overall this past week there were awesome performances and individuals who scored a lot of points which led to team victories – I could pick anyone of them to call out as leading the team this past week. However, leading is not always about the points you’re scoring, in fact, more often it’s about actions taken in situations where impact is made and doing so selflessly.

Juliana Banes has been coming back from an injury and it’s been a tough road, as it is for anyone fighting with injuries. After Banes ran the 1600m at Santa Clara, she was hurting – I heard from a teammate that “she could barely walk”! Fast forward to the end of the meet and there was a situation where we needed girls in the 3200m to score points since Santa Clara had no one. Banes stepped up, still in pain, and took one for the team to ensure the JV girls got all 9 points available for the 3200m. This is not the first time Banes has stepped up to the plate to score points when injured – if you read the post from Saratoga, she did the same exact thing in the 400m! This is what real leadership looks like; this is what being team-oriented looks like; this is what making coaches and your teammates love you looks like!! Way to be, Juliana!

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See performance details from each meet below!

Santa Clara Dual

For JV girls event winners were Sofia Schilling in the discus throw, Lauren Moore in the long jump and triple jump, Evan Greene in the shot put, Elaine Chen in the 100m H, Rita Bondar in the 800m, and Annelise Gorts in the 3200m. Once again, the field events really cleaned up scoring 58% of the total points. Winners on the JV boys side were Eddie Fan in the discus throw and triple jump, Adam Abdelrahman in the shot put, Kento Murase in the 800m, and the 4x100m relay team made up of Haris Shaikh, Edison Chang, Ivan Shilakhov, and Vivek Chidurala.

On the Varsity girls side, Alice Ross spun her way to a win in the discus throw, Lelani Laruelle soared above the competition in the high jump, Dylan Hwang nearly jump out of the pit to win the long jump and triple jump, Allie Rummelhoff put herself in the winner’s spot in shot, Raji Kenyan hurdled her way to victory in the 100m H and 300m H, and Anika Bhandarkar cruised to an 800m win. It was the same story for Varsity girls in the field, taking 56% of the total points scored! Event wins on the Varsity boys side were Ryan “Ain’t Lyin'” Shen in the high jump, Agasthya “Will Dust Ya” Kothuri in the long jump and triple jump, Graham “The Man” Ischo in the shot put, Ethan “Not Lu” Zhu in the 110m H, Denny “Sub-Twenty” Dong in the 400m and 200m, Manas “The Honest” Kottakota in the 300m H, Ryan “Voodoo” Liu in the 3200m, and the 4x400m relay made up of Kottakota, Kothuri, Tanay “Slick” Parikh, and Dong.

Stanford Invitational

We had 3 athletes competing at Stanford University over the weekend: Denny Dong, Lelani Laruelle, and Clara Fan. Dong ran the 800m and clocked a sub-2 minute time of 1:59.38 in a very talented field of high school boys. Laruelle finished 4th in a very close competition in the high jump, getting an impressive PR of 5’5″! It came down to number of attempts and ultimately a jump off for the top two spots, but in official results the top 4 girls matched Laruelle’s new PR. Fan also competed in the high jump, taking home a 10th place finish with 5’3″. That wasn’t all for Fan though, as she also captured another top 10 finish with a 7th place in the triple jump!

Quicksilver Classic

It started off as a beautiful day but after the Varsity 100m heats came to a close, lightning struck and the meet was delayed. Following the delay, the meet was able to be completed with the exception of the Varsity 300m H which they canceled due to the conditions. Overall our Frosh/Soph competitors led the day with efforts highlighted by Allie Rummelhoff who won the girls shot put and triple jump, Ryan Shen who won the boys high jump and long jump, and Graham Ischo who won the boys shot put! Other notable Frosh/Soph performances were Agasthya Kothuri who placed 2nd in boys long jump and triple jump, Alex Frefel who got 2nd in the boys 300m H and 3rd in the 65m H, Adam Abdelrahman who got 5th in the boys shot put, Eddie Fan who took 5th in the boys discus throw, Lauren Moore who placed 6th in the girls triple jump and was less than an inch away from a medal in the long jump, earning 7th place. On the Varsity side, we had strong performances from the 8 athletes there, but nobody was quite able to bring home a medal.

47 Total PRs!

Girls PRs (20)

  • Sophia Yamada – 400m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Mira Ram – 400m (@ Quicksilver)
  • Anika Bhandarkar – 800m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Miranda Hsu – 800m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Elina Jalili – 800m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Miranda Hsu – 1600m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Elaine Chen – 100m H (@ Santa Clara)
  • Lauren Moore, Felicity Ho, Mira Ram, Allie Rummelhoff – 4x100m JV season best (@ Quicksilver)
  • Allie Rummelhoff – Shot Put (@ Quicksilver)
  • Kathryn Foo – Shot Put (@ Santa Clara)
  • Maya Pullara – Shot Put (@ Santa Clara)
  • Alex Sharma – Shot Put (@ Santa Clara)
  • Aditi Chamarthy – Discus Throw (@ Santa Clara)
  • Jasmine Zhao – Discus Throw (@ Quicksilver)
  • Rafaela Maglaque – Discus Throw (@ Santa Clara)
  • Lelani Laruelle – High Jump (@ Stanford)
  • Dylan Hwang – Long Jump (@ Santa Clara)
  • Allie Rummelhoff – Long Jump (@ Santa Clara)
  • Dylan Hwang – Triple Jump (@ Santa Clara)
  • Jasmine Zhao – Triple Jump (@ Quicksilver)

Boys PRs (27)

  • Manas Kottakota – 100m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Qi Huang – 800m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Cameron Polidoro – 800m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Ryan Liu – 1600m (@ Quicksilver)
  • Kento Murase – 1600m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Aidan Cushman-Kihnley – 1600m (@ Quicksilver)
  • Cameron Polidoro – 1600m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Ethan Yang – 3200m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Aidan Cushman-Kihnley – 3200m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Brandon Wang – 3200m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Sridhar Shivashankar – 3200m (@ Santa Clara)
  • Alex Frefel – 65m H (@ Quicksilver)
  • Alex Frefel – 300m H (@ Santa Clara)
  • Ethan Zhu – 300m H (@ Santa Clara)
  • Adam Abdelrahman – Shot Put (@ Santa Clara)
  • Kingston Jourdan – Shot Put (@ Santa Clara)
  • Sean Malone – Shot Put (@ Santa Clara)
  • Graham Ischo – Shot Put (@ Santa Clara)
  • Alexander Zeng – Shot Put (@ Santa Clara)
  • Nate Diaz – Shot Put (@ Santa Clara)
  • Billy Levison – Shot Put (@ Santa Clara)
  • Ethan Lu – Shot Put (@ Santa Clara)
  • Eddie Fan – Discus Throw (@ Quicksilver)
  • Adam Abdelrahman – Discus Throw (@ Quicksilver)
  • Sean Malone – Discus Throw (@ Quicksilver)
  • Dayo Davies – Long Jump (@ Quicksilver)
  • Eddie Fan – Triple Jump (@ Santa Clara)