The Monta Vista track & field team concluded their 2016 season in style at the Central Coast Section Championships on Friday, May 27.
Senior James Migdal lead the way with a 6’3″ personal record on his very last high school competition! His performance was the highest jump by any Monta Vista athlete in the last ten years, as far as I can tell…pretty amazing. James’ effort was good for a 5th place CCS medal, that he will carry proudly, and will probably be telling his grandkids about someday (Pop-Pop, did you really win that medal?). James is the first athlete to make the CCS podium in track since Arvind Rao and Kevin Bishop both turned that particular trick in 2012.
Junior Kelly Bishop and Freshman Sarah Feng both recorded 9th place finishes, only seconds from the medal stand themselves. Kelly’s race was just a few seconds from her PR this year, and making the CCS finals was an arduous task after illness almost derailed her season on league championship day. Sarah battled bravely through her eight-lapper, gritting it out after the race got off to a fast start to record a personal record 11:01–the fastest time in CCS by a freshman in 2016, the fastest time by any Monta Vista freshman in our school history, and the third fastest Monta Vista time ever (after Bridget Gottlieb and Jenny Xu).
This was a very competitive CCS meet, with a lot of memorable performances; check out the complete results.
While our season is now concluded, this was a great year; a season to remember and build upon. Both our young teams (frosh-soph boys and JV girls) won league championships, with perfect 6-0 records and league meet championships. James had the best high jump by any Monta Vista boy in the last decade, and Mahima Shanware and Jessica Ji might have been the first pair to both jump 5’0″ in the same season for Monta Vista EVER–since Mahima is a soph and Jessica is a freshman they are part of a fantastic group of high jumpers! Horizontal jumpers also made a lot of noise, with Derek Zheng’s 40’9″ PR only a few feet from the all-time Monta Vista FS record, and Jessica’s 33’8″ jump puts the girls all time TJ record within her reach over the next few years. Evelyn How’s 12.63 mark for the 100m puts her less than a second away from being the first MV girl to ever get under 12, and the all-time 4×400 and 4×100 records appear to be vulnerable; the boys’ sprinters also look strong, lead by soph Eliot Lubomirsky’s 52.67 for the 400, the fastest MV mark by any aged athlete since 2010. The hurdlers have it going on also, with Derek less than a half second off the all-time MV 65m hurdle record and Jessica and Sabrina Hung both having top times for MV over the last few years. Brent Mogensen’s 4:25 was good for 8th in the 1600 at the SCVAL championships, and seems to be the 4th fastest by any MV boy for that distance. Junior Andy Ma broke 2:00 in the 800m, a big number to break, and was the first MV boy to hit that mark since 2012. Brent and Sarah have been added to the record books and I’d guess that we have the potential to do some more re-writing over the next few years!
This is only a quick overview…I’m sure I missed some other noteworthy performances!
Brent, Giselle Kaneda and Aarohi Palkar may all be competing at college next year (Santa Clara University, Occidental and Carnegie-Mellon); all their coaches have spots for them and are looking forward to having them on board. These three would be joining the many MV alumni currently competing in college track or cross-country at Johns Hopkins, MIT, CalTech, Carnegie-Mellon, Whitman, UC Irvine, Mt. Holyoke, Smith College, and other fine schools. Monta Vista athletics is building a very, very proud tradition.
Many of you are going to be joining the cross-country team in the fall–more of you than in prior years, I hope! Most distance runners compete for the cross team in the fall, and this year Eliot, Richard Dowd, Sabrina Hung and other shorter-distance athletes all had outstanding track seasons after running cross. We are hoping to see many sprinters and hurdlers joining us to run the trails when school starts again in August! Watch mvrunning for updates on the 2016 XC season, training suggestions, and inspirational news.
You all are really great. 2016 was a wonderful season!
Have a great summer, and see you in August!