Monta Vista Track and Field have been at the Central Coast Section championships the last couple weeks–let’s catch up!
CCS Trials May 19
Monta Vista brought eight athletes down to Gilroy for the sectional trials. First up were our 4×100 girls’ relay team of Evelyn How, Brooke Young, Nanda Nayak and Bianca Young who took care of business by winning their heat with a 48.46 and automatically advanced to the Finals next week. The girls’ clean performance set a good tone for the rest of the meet.
Bianca followed her anchor relay leg with a quick 59.36 in the 400m to qualify for the finals on time, as did Evelyn in the 100m; Brooke was only 0.14 seconds from advancing in the 100m also. In the 800m, junior Anjali Thontakudi continued her strong late season run with a 2:27.16. While she did not advance to the finals, Anjali backed up her 2:26 PR the week before with a similar time, establishing a new standard and a time to build upon for next year. Brooke got back on the track for a 200m run of 25.64 that advanced her to the finals by only 0.01 seconds–another reminder to never, ever give up and keep trying no matter what!
Sarah Feng and Jeffrey Xu both represented well in the 3200m however did not advance to the finals. While not hitting their PRs today they both had fine seasons. Jeffrey graduates and heads off to UC Irvine next year, while Sarah had a great year to build upon and is looking forward to a strong XC season next Fall.
Wrapping up a good Trials day, Reema Apte joined Evelyn, Brooke, and Bianca to run a 4:02.92 mark to break their own Monta Vista school record as well as move on to the Finals next week.
Complete trials results are posted here.
CCS Finals May 25
Coaches and athletes were down at Gilroy early on Friday–that first gun could not go off soon enough. While it was windy in the afternoon, by the time the running started the air was pretty calm and the temperature was good for track.
The first gun at 6pm started the girls 4x100m relay with our heroes in the 6th lane. With Evelyn off to her patented solid start and good hand offs all around, our ladies brought home a CCS championship with a 47.96 mark, holding off charging Silver Creek and Menlo-Atherton teams by less than a quarter of a second! This was an amazing, incredible achievement. As I type these words I am tearing up a little bit. I am so happy for these four girls! I don’t think Evelyn, Brooke, Nanda and Bianca will ever forget this minute of their lives–and there are very, very few minutes in anyone’s life like that one.
And to relive that minute…here is a video of the race. Coach John sent this to me ten minutes ago and I am currently on my 10th viewing I think! Our hand offs look pretty amazing…that’s a tribute to Coach John McKeeman’s great coaching and also a lot of hard work by our girls!
Video Link: IMG_5261
In our individual finals events, Bianca turned in a 59.11 for the 400 to take 5th place and assure that she would have medals clinking together on her chest when she walked out of the stadium. Evelyn’s 12.48 in the 100 gave her 8th place out of the 150 or so schools and virtually uncountable number of girls that run the 100 in our section, and Brooke’s 25.81 was an agonizing .05 seconds off the podium (a reminder again of how close the placements can be in a high level track meet).
In the 4×400, Reema got back in the mix with Brooke, Bianca, and Evelyn. The girls went out hard and fought well, pulling the field along for much of the race. While ultimately this group finished 7th and one place off the podium with a 4:03.06, they left everything they had on the track. Monta Vista was right in the front setting the pace and mixing it up with the leaders the whole way (check out this video). This group goes off the track with a great year, including setting a new school record, and will all be back in 2019.
As a team, the Monta Vista girls finished 12th in our ~150 team section with 19 points (Silver Creek was the division champion).
Complete results have been posted. All official CCS entries have also been posted; check out who is listed first! There is a Mercury-News article on the meet results.
It can be easy to forget how competitive our Sectional meet can be. The CCS competition is tougher than many or most of the state championships across the country. You think I am exaggerating? Just for fun, take a look at the Idaho state championships for 4A-5A (Idaho’s largest schools). Think about how we compare! We are competing against very, very strong and deep competitors.
We are not done! Next Friday June 1, we will pile in cars and head down to Clovis for the State Championships at Buchannon High School. This is the first time since 2012 that Monta Vista has sent athletes to the CIF State Track and Field Championships. Road trip!
