Monta Vista athletes wrapped up a memorable year during the week of the Central Coast Section Championships, featuring stellar performances!
CCS Trials Saturday May 20, 2017
Monta Vista sent twelve athletes to the Trials meet in Gilroy, California. As usual, the girls’ 4x100m relay team set a great tone for the team in the very first event*. The relay team of senior Anella Palacpac, sophomores Alisha Gao and Evelyn How, and freshman Claire Ettinger threw down a season best mark of 50.84 and got everyone feeling good.
Next up was Kelly Bishop in the 1600m. This turned into a brutal race, as the heat was blazing and the 1600m was the first longer event to find out how much the weather was effecting the athletes. The heat had a big impact, it turned out; there were several girls bent over garbage cans afterwards, unfortunately. Also I think that there was some plant down there putting off a lot of pollen as my allergies went crazy. In any case, Kelly persevered and recorded a 5:09, good enough to advance to finals which was the goal for the day. Kelly also competed in the 800m, and although she was still feeling the effects of a hard 1600m she ran a solid 2:24.
Evelyn How ran a personal best 12.60 in the 100m, an agonizing tie for 9th place with eight athletes advancing to the Final. However, Evelyn is a sophomore and definitely has a lot of fans! The Los Gatos coach was one of several people who walked up to Coach Flatow and asked similar versions of, who was that in the 100m? She looked great! I was rooting for her! Evelyn wrapped up the season holding the third best mark in the league and 23rd in CCS.
Over in the field events, Jessica Ji was jumping a 4’10” in the high jump, matching her season best and only 2″ off her personal best. JJ also recorded a 32’10”, a nice mark but well off the PR she had set at the SCVAL championships a week earlier. JJ had a really good season and we are looking forward to an even more eventful junior season in 2018!
Running in his last high school race, Bennett Zhang’s 3200m race was slammed by the late afternoon heat and a sizzling track that had been baking all day. This was Bennett’s first appearance in the CCS track championships after a very successful career at Monta Vista; while he peels off his MV singlet for the last time, the next time he suits up for a race he will be representing Carnegie-Mellon University. Good luck to Bennett as he heads off to college!
In the 4×400 relays, the Monta Vista girls’ team of Kelly, Evelyn, Claire and Reema Apte anchoring ran a very solid 4:10.80, only a bit behind their season best despite the heat. Their mark was good for 13th overall. While the season was over, these girls met their objective of getting to the CCS meet. With only Kelly graduating, and a deep pool of 400m runners working diligently, the 2018 edition will look to get back her and perhaps, with work, go further!
The boys relay team of Eliot Lubomirsky, Andy Ma, Scott Gregory and sophomore Derek Zheng took care of business, taking down the St. Francis Lancers squad to win their heat and advance to the CCS championship meet next Friday night.
CCS Finals Friday Night Under The Lights May 26, 2017
I’m not going to try to build up any drama…here is the Spoiler Alert. Monta Vista sent five athletes the CCS championships, and brought back five medals. Sweet!
Kelly lead off in the 1600m and ran a very professional 5:06 to take her first CCS track medal to go with two CCS cross country medals! Kelly, who the night before received the Matador of the Year award given to Monta Vista’s top senior athletes, concluded a storied Monta Vista athletic career that also includes three track records, four state cross country championship appearances, CCS team championships in both cross country and swimming, and ten varsity letters. Kelly will now graduate, and join the UC Santa Barbara cross country and track and field teams. Thank you for everything you have done for the team the last four years. Kelly…we will be watching you proudly at UCSB!
In the last race of the night, Monta Vista’s boys lined up for the 4x400m relay finals. Some of the most storied track and field programs within a hundred miles also were spiked up and ready to go: Bellarmine, Serra, Los Gatos, St. Francis all have section team championships on their resumes. Sophomore Derek Zheng lead off with a trademark strong leg, rising to the occasion and eating up a lot of the stagger from the 6th lane. Senior Andy Ma (heading to UC San Diego in the Fall) took the tricky second leg. The second runner in the 4×4 is the only athlete that has to make a baton exchange within a lane, and he must stay in the lane and then manage the cut-in at the break line. This is not a trivial difference, and adding to the pressure on Andy, he was matched against Bellarmine’s star athlete Alex Scales. Alex had already won both the 800m and 1600m events, and had a season for the ages for the Bells, anchoring relay wins from Stanford to the Penn Relays. Our Andy did not wilt under pressure, made the cut in, and noticeably accelerated to the finish. Senior Scott Gregory (heading to the University of Dubuque to study aviation) is one of the best athletes around at running down anyone within range, and Scott ran a great lap to hand the stick to junior Eliot Lubomirsky in great position. Eliot closed against some of the best 400m runners in the section to put Monta Vista on the podium in fourth place with a big season best of 3:23.17, trailing the top three of Serra, Los Altos and San Benito by a narrow margin while edging out Bellarmine and Los Gatos.
The boys ran fast and extremely consistent splits, with each of the team recording 400s between 50.3 and 50.9. This balanced performance typifies the work ethic and team spirit of this group; everyone working together for a common goal. After an on-field celebration around the podium (one of the perks of medalling in the boys’ 4×4 is that the meet is over so fans and teammates can storm the field and surround the podium for the awards ceremony), our boys went over and thanked the meet times, officials and organizers and then helped pick up some trash around the field–which is not normal behavior for any team other than this one, in my experience. MVTF makes your coaches, parents and school proud in many ways, and not only your athleticism. The work ethic, sportsmanship, and grit displayed by MVTF is more important and, we all believe, will take all of you very far.
(Check out the exchanges below! Unlaned relay baton exchanges are insane in big meets like this, crowded and pressure-packed. Any track fan who looks at these photos must have their heart rate increase a bit! I know mine does.)
Exchange 1: Derek to Andy
Exchange 2: Andy to Scott
Exchange 3: Scott to Eliot
Some Perspective On The CCS Championships
Getting on the podium at the Central Coast Section Championships is a huge achievement. Coach John and I have been talking this week about how deep and competitive our section is, and our opinion that our section is comparable to most state meets. So I decided this morning to do some quick research to answer the question, how would our boys have fared in different states across the country? Here is where Derek, Andy, Scott and Eliot’s 3:23.17 would stack up in different State championships (2017 if their championships are complete, 2016 if the 2017 season is still going):
Where Monta Vista’s 4×400 Would Have Placed In Selected State Championship Meets
2016/2017 (State Meet, or largest division state championship if selected state competes based upon school enrollment)
Massachusetts: 9th
New York: 7th
Pennsylvania: 8th
Virginia: 1st
North Carolina: 4th
Tennessee: 4th
Alabama: 5th
Georgia: 6th
Michigan: 3rd
Ohio: 9th
Wisconsin: 8th
Missouri: 8th
Colorado: 2nd
New Mexico: 3rd
Arizona: 2nd
Nevada: 2nd
Idaho: 1st
Washington: 2nd
This chart gives you an idea of the competitiveness of the Central Coast Section. The competition we face in our section is similar to almost any other entire STATE. You, MVTF athlete, are competing at a very, very high level! Even our dual meets and league meets are extremely competitive compared to almost anywhere else. However, before you think ‘gee, I wish I lived in Idaho’ remember that good competition brings out the best in you–and bring out your best should be the point of any effort, not the medal. Not that I don’t like hardware! However, the challenge of choosing to be an athlete in a really competitive part of the world is going to help you develop your grit, self-control and other character traits that will pay off your entire life. Also…living in Cupertino is great, you go to a great school, you are in a dynamic and diverse part of the country! Don’t wish you lived anywhere else…be thankful for where you live…but also appreciate how much you have accomplished as an athlete this season whether you went all the way to CCS finals or recorded a PR and scored a point in a dual meet against Santa Clara High School.
The CCS championship is a great meet, both inspirational and entertaining. This meet is better than any reality TV show! There were great races whether Monta Vista was involved or not. I know that this is Finals week but I’d really recommend that every track fan consider coming down to see this meet every year and cheer. We would get a van if there is interest! This meet is a great evening of entertainment.
Complete results for the CCS championships are on-line.
Parents from Paly and Los Altos posted photos that include MV athletes, and I would expect Mr. Ma would have an album up soon.
Cross Country; Keep An Eye On This Space
Since I have you here…I hope that you noted that 3/4 of the boys on the 4×4 team ran cross-country last Fall! And the fourth boy played football so everyone was competing in some sport. It’s really hard to truly succeed in track if you show up in February for your first practice without doing anything athletic and competitive for the rest of 2017. Successful competitors like to compete, against themselves, and against others! So consider joining cross country no matter what your track event might be…cross welcomes everyone who wants to work hard no matter what your talent level might be. There are hammer throwers at UC Berkeley and Carnegie-Mellon who were proud MVXC athletes! So come join the cross-country team!
Watch this space for cross country news, more track updates, photos, and inspirational messages all summer.
If you have questions about summer training or just want to talk about anything, email coach at coachflatow@gmail.com. I love hearing from you and I want to help!
Have a great summer, stay in touch, see you soon!
And…congratulations on a great season!
*Well done, team; you qualified for the VERY FIRST heat in the meet, and the VERY LAST heat also…you made sure you kept your coaches working hard! There is no off day coaching the Monta Vista team…hahaha!