Getting Ready to Race–Before the Rain Comes Down
One would think that on a September Saturday in Concord, California, we could count on good weather. If anything, we would be worried about the heat. Nope! We had a downpour that turned the course into a complete mud pit within thirty minutes!
The Nike/De La Salle Invitational started in fabulous weather, and our junior varsity girls’ team took full advantage of the cool temperatures. Although this was Monta Vista’s first time at this event, our girls were not shy about taking the lead, and they quickly scooped up a bunch of hardware. Paru Meyyappan and Kaylene Patti went 1-2 in the first race of the day, with times of 13:34 and 13:48–and Kaylene had to sprint to hold off a furious charge from two girls from Los Lomas, one of whom ended up only a second behind her. Isabel LaPlain also finished in the top ten, and the team scored 43 points to win the JV competition in a dominating performance over second place Las Lomas. The whole team (including Sanjna Bharadwaj, Chloe Li, Namrata Subramanian, and Valerie Lo) picked up team championship medals, as well as some pretty nice Nike bags, for winning that race.
Paru Taking First Place in the JVG Race
The frosh-soph boys also made some noise, with Max Sawyer and Brent Mogensen going 5-6 to give Monta Vista another two top ten finishers. The Nike/De La Salle meet features teams from the North Coast section, including some traditional state powers, including De La Salle, Monte Vista of Danville, Jesuit and Bella Vista ( of Sacramento), James Logan (from Union City), and others. Our team represented the Central Coast section very well, with two boys on the podium and an 11th place team finish.
Brent leading two Jesuit High School runners with 1200m to go.
An hour after the FSB race, the rain cut loose! Check out the course at the same spot as the photo of Brent, as Bridget comes through with the lead pack of Varsity girls.
After threatening all day, the rain really cut loose before the Varsity Girls’ race, turning the course instantly into a mudfest. Girls were slipping and falling all over the course, particularly at a downhill about one mile into the course; Bridget Gottlieb had to avoid a girl who went down in front of her, and went off course into a tree. Undeterred, the MV girls ran strong, with both Bridget (3rd) and Jenny Xu (6th) finishing in the top ten as the Varsity girls (including Julia Chang, Maddie Yip, Anna Hsiao and Kelly Bishop, with Sunny Shan off at Mt. Holyoke College on a recruited athlete’s weekend) took 3rd overall and were the first team from CCS*. One of our team strengths is our depth, and it showed as our fifth runner, Julia Chang, was the second fastest fifth runner out of all the varsity girls teams, and would have been the 3rd runner on more than half the teams in the field. The VG team depth, with any of our athletes able to step up and deliver a great performance at any time, is going to carry this team a long way.
After the girls’ mud fest, the meet management made a last second decision to change the course for the Varsity Boys. While I’m sure this was a lot safer, this did deprive the boys of the chance to have their own mud fight! In addition, no one really new how long the alternate course was; the meet director said he thought the course was still 3 miles long, that was clearly wrong, and without any hills, the new course clearly benefited those runners that were used to flat racing and went out fast. Monta Vista teams run lots of hills every week, and so they took away our strength. Nonetheless our boys recorded a solid 14th place team finish, lead by Senior Captain Zach Patti. (Host De La Salle and Jesuit, both contenders for State titles, tied for first place…does anyone know how a tie is broken in cross country?**)
Congratulations to everyone on a great first trip to a new invitational!
Next up, SCVAL 2 at Crystal on Tuesday, September 24.
Complete meet results are available here.
There are photos up in the gallery.
Different strategies for trying to stay dry while staying to cheer on the Varsity Boys’ team.
*The first three team finishers were Bella VISTA (Fair Oaks), Monte VISTA (Danville) and Monta VISTA. Weird.
**The fastest runner from each team arm wrestles.***
***No, that’s not right! The tie is broken by the finishing position of the 6th runner from each team. In this case, the De La Salle 6th runner finished 4 seconds in front of Jesuit’s 6th place finisher! Remember how your coaches go on and on about always continuing to try to work hard, even on your bad days, and even when you think your finish does not matter? If the De La Salle athlete had eased off by even 2 seconds per mile, his team takes 2nd! Yikes.
