MVTF Impresses at Top 8 with Two New School Records
The CCS Top 8 Classic is an invite that features pretty much the best athletes in CSS. It’s almost like a teaser trailer of what’s the come 4 weeks later. That means that it’s a really tough meet to even get into which is why we are very proud to have sent 15 athletes who ended up placing 7th overall as a team! Of course, the two big highlights of the meet were new school records: Denny Dong broke his own two-week old school record in the 400m to win with a blistering time of 48.82, a nearly half-second improvement on an already fast previous record; and Lelani Laruelle leaped to heights no girl in Monta Vista history every has with a high jump of 5’8″ breaking the 29 year old record of 5’6″ and winning the girls competition. This has Dong sitting at the 23rd spot in California and Laruelle tied for the 2nd in the state!
Other highlights from the meet were girls jumping trio of Clara Fan, Dylan Hwang, and Laruelle who went 3rd, 4th, and 5th in the triple jump, respectively. Fan and Hwang also took 3rd and 4th in the long jump and Fan tied for 4th in the high jump along with Laruelle’s exciting victory. Ethan Lu snagged an 8th place finish in the 110m H, Ryan Shen also placed 8th in the high jump, and the girls 4x800m relay placed 10th with a team made up of Margaux Francoeur, Valerie Ayzenberg, Miranda Hsu, and Anika Bhandarkar. Bhandarkar was so close to a top-10 finish with her 11th place in the 3200!
Next Up for MVTF
This week is our El Camino League Championships, which means we are now on the road to State! The top athletes on our team will compete in each event to try and bring home some ECAL championship hardware and ultimately qualify individuals for SCVALs, which is the next round. After SCVALs, athletes that qualify will move onto CSS, and then to the big stage at State!
8 PRs total!
6 Girls PRs
- Valerie Ayzenberg, Margaux Francoeur, Miranda Hsu, Anika Bhandarkar – 4x800m Relay season best
- Lelani Laruelle – High Jump (School record 5’8″!!!)
- Clara Fan – Long Jump
- Dylan Hwang – Long Jump
- Dylan Hwang – Triple Jump
- Lelani Laruelle – Triple Jump
2 Boys PRs
- Denny Dong – 400m (School record 48.82!!!)
- Ethan Zhu – 110m H