A bunch of odds and ends of results that have happened while we have been on break and the first week back, as your coach recovers from the ‘trauma’ of a wet and cold Boston Marathon…
Top 8 Meet
Monta Vista did not bring all the team to the Top 8 meet–while this is a great meet, many of our qualifiers had just run a string of big meets (St. Francis, Azusa MOC, Stanford and Arcadia) or had travel plans over break. Our lone entrant, sophomore Kelly Bishop, made sure that we were not forgotten though, as she won the varsity girls’ 800m race with a sparkling kick. Well done, Kelly, way to represent!
Bill Kearney Invitational
A few of our athletes wanted to take a shot at a PR or try something different, so we took a drive down to Salinas to the Bill Kearney invitational. This was rumored to be a good invite, and it did not disappoint. Namrata Subramanian narrowly missed a 1600m PR with her 5:42.35 time, and Mizuki and Megan turned in solid 608-6:10 marks. Akshara ran an impressive 12:07 for her first ever 3200m, and Salma was a mere second from a 3200m PR of her own; both Akshara and Salma earned podium spots for their finishes. Brent Mogensen’s 4:35 in the 1600m was another big PR in an impressive junior season, good for third in the varsity race, while Andy Ma ran his debut 1600m in a 5:08 (he will be breaking 5 before too long!). Jeffrey Xu missed 11 minutes in the 3200m by less than a second–clearly he needed his sister at the side of the track yelling at him 🙂 !
Overall, a really nice day, and big thanks to Coach Leah for taking the day to head down to Salinas and make this possible!
Pacific Grove Invitational
PG is another meet we tried for the first time. The temperature was pretty spectacular for distance runners, cold and dry with just a little breeze that gusted enough to make this a less than perfect day (and gave your coach some harrowing Boston flashbacks).
For the second straight week, Brent ran an impressive PR, this time cracking 10 in the 3200m for the first time in his career with an impressive 9:54 mark! Julia, Bennett, and Paru all ended up on the podium in their 3200 races; Paru missed that magic 12 minute mark by an agonizing 0.74 seconds, and Paru took home a 4th place medal in the varsity girls’ race. Emilio notched a PR in the 800m race, while Sanjna took home a 3rd place medal with her 5′ clearance in the high jump. Anjini, Akshay, Namrata and Mizuki also had solid days that are going to set them up well for the next couple of weeks’ races.
Alumni Update
Take some time to check out how last year’s grads Kiersten Chuc (Carnegie Mellon), Richelle Ju (Smith College), Bridget Gottlieb (Johns Hopkins), Zach Patti (Oberlin), and Sunny Shan (Mount Holyoke College) are doing in their freshman year…they are making contributions to their teams and traveling quite a bit, including the post-season. Bridget recently competed in the Penn Relays–that is a huge deal–and Kiersten, Sunny and Richelle all were in action at their conference championships. Pretty fun! Well done, ex-MV athletes!
Leagues/Monta Vista Post Season
League finals are coming up, and there are a few questions…we will go over this at practice also.
The El Camino League meet will be hosted by Monta Vista this year, on Monday May 4 and Wednesday May 6. Every team in the league has three automatic entries for each gender in each division (three each in VB, VG, FSB, JVG). There are circumstances in which we can get additional entries when we are particularly deep in an event (last year, we had five girls qualify for the varsity 3200m race, which was exceptional). In general, we will give the entries to the three fastest marks, though sometimes one of the athletes will not use an entry in order to focus on another event, there may be an injury, and also an athlete can only compete in four events (including relays). Also, the coaching staff may give an athlete a spot if we feel that they have given an exceptional effort.
We will be figuring out our League entries in the days after the Saratoga/Cupertino meet on Tuesday…so that dual meet will be the last opportunity for athletes to make a statement about what events they want to contest in the post season!
Everyone on the team is expected to come to the league final meet, whether you qualify or not, to support your teammates and help run the meet and make sure it flows smoothly.
After leagues, we will have the SCVAL Championships on Friday night, May 15 at Santa Clara High School. This is a varsity-only meet; the top 16 varsity marks from the El Camino and De Anza league championships are invited to compete. Even if you don’t qualify, we hope you will attend to support your teammates (and if you are looking for PE credit, you MUST attend and be part of the hurdle crew). The SCVAL championships are a big-deal meet, and really fun to be a part of or to watch–we hope you all attend!
And so…
This has already been a pretty amazing season…do you realize, for example, that we have nine girls that have already gone below 6 minutes in the 1600m (in 2011, there were two!)?
Hope to see you at Tuesday’s home meet! Let’s have a rewarding end to a strong season!
The best is yet to come!
