UPDATE: Sunny Shan is joining the CCS squad in the 800m! After scratches were entered, Sunny will be joining the CCS team as an alternate, replacing Amy Lynch of Mountain View.
That brings the total number of Monta Vista entries to six, our biggest group in three years. In 2011, Monta Vista had one boy individual entry and one relay team entry; last year, three boy individuals and a single girl, plus a relay.
Congratulations, and good luck to everyone this Saturday!
Original post:
Monta Vista advanced five athletes to the Central Coast Section meet at the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League championships on Friday. The top six finishers, plus at-large athletes who record a challenging mark in each event, advance to the sectional championships.
The group of Monta Vista qualifiers is headlined by an outstanding group of distance running girls. This was a stand-out season for female distance running in our league. Jenny Xu, Bridget Gottlieb and Maddie Yip finished 6-7-8 in the Varsity Girl’s 3200m race; Jenny was an automatic qualifier, and both Bridget and Maddie achieved the at-large marks. In order to qualify for CCS, Bridget recorded a PR of almost 20 seconds and Maddie’s PR was almost 10 seconds–amazing! All three girls have been working together hard all year and have been pushing, pulling and supporting each other to achieve new levels of excellence. Their races on Friday were courageous. In the CCS meet, there are 30 spots for more than 130 schools, and Monta Vista has taken 10% of all the available places in our section–amazing!
Emma Seyer threw the shot 30′ 4″ to finish 6th and claim her place in the CCS meet. Emma’s dedicated work in the weight room for the last year and the throwers’ ring all season paid off; her throw at SCVAL was almost a meter further than last year’s PR. She has the potential to go much further, next week will be exciting to watch!
Our final CCS competitor is first year teammate Richelle Ju. Richelle cleared 4′ 10″ in her first attempt, equaling her personal best. This has been a great rookie season for Richelle and it’s not over yet! We are very lucky to have had Richelle join us–she also has been running a great lead-off leg on our 4x400m team!
Monta Vista had other fine performances. Sophmore Rohan Choudhury ran 4:38 in the 1600m, within a second of his all-time best, for a 9th place Varsity finish. Giselle Kaneda went 16.70 in the 100m hurdles for a new PR (and one of the best 100m hurdle times that a Monta Vista freshman has ever recorded), as well as competing in the long jump finals. Senior Chris Ma recorded double PRs, with a 17.24 in the 110 hurdles, and a 42.80 in the 300 hurdles–two PRs in his last night wearing an MV uniform–sweet! Another track rookie, junior Sunny Shan, represented MV well in the 800m run with a 2:28.50, good for a 9th place photo-finish and a fine two second PR. Junior Anand Rao was our fastest boy in in the 800m this year, recording a 2:02.76 and a PR of about a second and a half.
In the field events, James Migdal leaped 5’8″ in the high jump, equaling his season best. James was the only Freshman to make the finals in the high jump–high jump tends to favor older boys–so James is well positioned to improve and be one of the top jumpers in our league. Keep working at this event, James! Kiersten Chuc threw the discus 92′, a tad below her season best but almost 10′ further than she was throwing last year–like Emma, a tribute to Kiersten’s dedicated and hard work.
We had some very good results in the relays. Our varsity boys 4x400m team went 3:35, less than two seconds from a CCS berth and a five second improvement over their season best. Senior Bumpei Maeda ran a heroic final leg, while Junior John Hsaio and sophomores Rochish Ambati and Chatty Adiga ran blazing splits. Our sophomores say they are REALLY motivated and their coaches believe that dedicated off-season work will yield remarkable results in 2014! The girls 4×400 team of Richelle, Sunny, Sanjna Bharadwaj and Chloe Li also recorded a season best with a 4:28, and the boys’ 4×100 team of Rochish, Chatty and seniors Gokul Parakulam and Guhan Venkataraman also notched a season best time.
California track and field is extremely competitive; our local SCVAL meet is more competitive than most State championship meets across the USA. For example, Jenny, Bridget and Maddie would have placed in the top 10 at the Pennsylvania 4A state championship! Keep that in mind when you think about our athletes…their achievements are truly outstanding.
Following the conclusion of the meet, MV got together on the track for some celebratory pizza (after the traditional SCVAL Open Mile, which MV dominated)–a nice way to finish the night and reflect on our accomplishments.
We hope you can get down to Gilroy next Saturday to see our Fab 5 at CCS!
And see you at the banquet this Wednesday!
(Sorry about the limited number of photos–the electronics rule was in force.)
