It was supposed to rain all day, and it only rained part of the day…call that a win!
Dawn was gray but dry as a small group of Monta Vista track athletes arrived at St. Francis High School for the first invitational meet there since 2019. Weather was perfect for distance running as Ellie Hsu and then Andrew Cole competed in the varsity 3000 runs, taking 17th and 18th in very strong fields.
Sotiri0s Kougiouris took his heat in the 110m hurdles with a 17.00, less than a second off his PR, and Ethan Lu just missed single digits with a 10.01 in the 65m hurdles–his mark was good for a PR for Ethan, and he was Monta Vista’s first top three finisher, taking third place overall! Denny Dong followed that up with a PR in the 800m, running away from the frosh-soph field with a 2:05.66 that was good for a place at the top of the podium!
In the field events, Monta Vista had three sophomore girls throwing both shot and discus. Alice Ross, Michelle Zheng and Anika Manjesh all finished in the top 10 overall in the shot put, with Alice’s 27′-4.5″ throw good for third place. Alice exceeded that performance with a PR in the discus, a 95′-9″ personal record that won the event! Michelle eartned PRs in both shot and discus, and Rahul Shankar also competed in the shot. On the other side of the infield, freshman Clara Fan cleared 5′-0″ in the high jump for the first time, a personal record in her second consecutive meet, giving Clara a second place finish in a big invitational; her 15′-0.25″ long jump in a cold and honestly miserable rain gave Clara another second place out of 23 jumpers from all over Northern California!
The rain let up briefly as Monta Vista’s girls ran in the distance medley relay. The DMR, one of Coach Flatow’s favorite events, has legs of 1200m, 400m, 800m and 1600m. Tufts-bound senior Vivian Lau lead off in the 1200, handing off in a crowd to sophomore Valerie Ayzenberg, who ran a strong 400m leg. Junior Avani Kalari threw in her fastest 800m run of the young season and senior Jannah Sheriff brought home a 6th place finish for the Monta Vista distance team!
Complete results are available.
This week, Monta Vista hosts Wilcox in a dual meet on Thursday the 24th. On Saturday March 26th, the team splits up, with some distance runners heading to Azusa for the Meet of Champions while a larger contingent heads to Fremont High School for the Firebird Relays.
