MVTF has a fond spot for the St. Francis Invite. The tree in the track is part of it. Short drive is also attractive. The meet feels big time. And…we often increase our stock of workout shirts! Yes, the St. Francis Invitational awards shirts for the top three places…I won’t say they are free because it takes a lot of hard work to earn one!
We started the day with the first race of the day, Event One, numero uno, as Paru Meyyappan and Bhavna Sud opened the day with the varsity girls’ 3000m. Paru dropped 12 seconds off of last year’s result, and she and Bhavna got us off to a good start for the day.
Bennett Zhang had a great race in the boys’ 3000m, trading surge for surge with some of the CCS big guns. Bennett took the lead twice to push the pace, in an exciting race with many lead changes, until finally finishing less than a second off the podium. This was one of the most thrilling races so far this year!
Jessica Ji represented our hurdlers well, less than a half second off her PR and the podium; she is on her way this season. MVTF soon got on the podium, as Alisha Gao took first in the Frosh-Soph girls’ 400m (after taking a third place in the same race last year, she is filling her t-shirt drawer with St. Francis gear). Triya Roy followed soon after with a third in the FS girls mile, running a 4:36, and a nice high school PR for her. Salma Sheriff threw down a 5:46 in the varsity mile, which converts to be very close to her 1600m PR; that mark will fall soon, we are sure. Jeffrey Xu and Andy Fang recorded 4:43 and 4:46 in their varsity mile race, and those numbers are PRs for both of them!
MVTF likes relays; this is a real team part of track, and often the desire to support the team helps individuals find breakthroughs that carry over to individual events. This year, the St. Francis meet added the 4x800m relay, and MV jumped in. In the varsity boys’ 4x800m relay, Andy Fang, Andy Ma, Eliot Lubomirsky and Justin Lin combined to record an 8:23, averaging under 2:06 each and good for a third place finish just behind Palo Alto. A little later in the day, the frosh-soph girls’ relay team of Claire Chang, first time half-miler Lauren Ling, Triya Roy and Anjali Thontakudi hammered the field, coming in more than 20 seconds before the second place team for the meet championship! Claire took an early lead and every girl kept adding on during a dominating performance in one of the toughest distances on the track.
St. Francis also added an invitational mile to the program, and Kelly Bishop represented in this race. Kelly recorded a season best 5:10.09 in the mile (converts to a ~5:08 in the 1600m), holding off a hard charging Los Altos runner for the podium spot. This was a great race in a prestige match up including nine distance runners that should show up in the CCS championship meet later this season.
We had bright spots in the field events also, as Cynthia Gong brought home a second place in the triple jump and cleared 14′ 6.12″ for a PR in the long jump, Jessica Ji tied for second place in the high jump, while Sarang Deshpande also had a long jump PR.
At 6pm, as the coaches and the boys 4×400 team dragged ourselves off the track after the very last event of the day, we were tired but happy. A very successful MVTF day!
Complete results are up on Lynbrook sports. Evelyn How posted some great photos, and check back and more photos from Mr. Ma.
