Monta Vista’s last dual meet at Cupertino High School was the last chance for athletes to seek a 2021 personal record, as well as the chance for qualification for the SCVAL post-season meet. MVTF went in aggressively with heads up and had great results!
Personal records started to fall early, as freshman Megan Nieh wrapped up her first year of high school track with a 6:24 and a five second PR in the 1600, while Matt Sun cracked the five minute barrier for the first time with a 4:58; Denny Dong and Amogh Rajagopal added PRs in the four lapper. The 100m races yielded another slew of PRs as Soti Kougiouris, Ethan Lu, Cash Bowman, Aaron Ryoo, Aakash Parashar, Sammi Dunn, Agnes Wang, Natassha Ooi, and Anika Manjesh all set new personal best times. After Yvonne Chen completely blew up a hurdle while trying to recreate a scene from Fast and Furious 9 (seriously, getting up and finishing that race was an incredibly gutsy display from Yvonne–coaches were both terrified and impressed!), freshman Valerie Ayzenberg took to the track in borrowed spikes to set a 65.67 PR in the 400 and claim the 15th and final varsity spot in the SCVAL meet on Saturday, May 29! Vishal Koppuru’s season best 55.77 also earned him the 15th and final 400 spot on the boys’ side, and earned the coaches a few more gray hairs. Even on a windy day, Sydney Stevens and Nikhita Saldi set PRs in the 800; Sydney’s 2:33 earned her a second alternate spot in the SCVAL meet while Nikhita looked tuned up and ready to go for her spot in the 3200m finals. Freshman Ethan Lu moved up to varsity and blasted a two second PR in the 300m hurdles, giving him the first alternate spot on Saturday; there are no faster freshmen in all of SCVAL in the 300m hurdles this year!
In the field events, Eric Zheng tuned up for the SCVAL meet with a 43’2″ shot put mark that briefly put him atop the SCVAL leader board; Eric will be competing in both throws on Saturday with the goal of advancing to the CCS meet in both events. Occidental-bound Sammy Banerjee had a 113′ discus toss to give him the 6th longest mark for the SCVAL discus competion. Rahul Shankar, Vincent Fu, Nick Hsieh, Arnav Latkar, Preetal Deshpande, Anoushka Lakshmi, Lavinia Lei and Anika Manjesh also recorded PRs in one or both of the throws. Mary Choy cleared four feet for the first time in the high jump, Zoë Wang soared over 35 feet in the triple, along with PRs from Parky Sood and Vincent Zhao and a season best from Brandon Xu that punched his ticket to Saturday’s meet.
As a team, MVTF won the varsity girls, JV girls and FS divisions, closing out the season with a 17-7 overall team record. Nice season, team!
Complete meet results have been posted. Agnes and her mom were taking photos again, too!
SCVAL Meet Information
The meet will be at Los Gatos High School on Saturday, May 28; the schedule has been posted. Make sure you arrive with plenty of time, in your uniform! No spectators will be allowed. Athletes in uniform that have qualified, along with the top four alternates, will be admitted to the track. In addition, Monta Vista will bring a hurdle crew…everyone in the hurdle crew should wear either their track uniform or this season’s MVTrack&Field team shirt and jacket…we should all be wearing one of these two items! Ellie, Sean, Megan, Nerea, Sydney, Andrew C and Andrew R, Insiah, Ari, Max, Preetal, Diya, Upasana, Parky and Alex are all on the hurdle crew list…please be at Los Gatos by 3:30 (4 at the latest) to help set up, get ready to support the meet as hurdle crew!
The almost-final entries list is attached as a download. An updated, final program will be linked Friday night I expect. Places 17-20 below the cutoff will be alternates.
