MV Rolls at the 2019 Mt SAC Invitational

The Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational is the biggest XC race in the world, year after year.  Mt. SAC is the world’s largest cross country competition; this year there were 91 high school races (many of these races included over 200 athletes) plus middle school and community college divisions.  The course is a 70 year old classic, 2.93 miles long with three challenging hills that have earned names (the Switchbacks, Poop Out Hill, and Reservoir Hill).  Monta Vista has been bringing a full team down almost every year for the past decade, and so we have developed a lot of recent history at Mt. SAC.

After a Friday bus ride to Los Angeles, a Friday shake out run and a hearty pasta dinner, the team boarded the bus from the hotel before dawn and headed to Mt. SAC.

At 7:53am, the Monta Vista freshman girls got things rolling.  Less than three months into their high school careers, the freshman girls have demonstrated that the class 2023 could be a special group.  MVXC recorded an exceptional 55 point score for a team second place, only 28 points off of nationally ranked Great Oak and 90 points clear of powerful Granada Hills, which took third.   MVXC’s 1-5 gap of 42 seconds was outstanding.   Avani Kalari, Sydney Stevens and Agnes Wang all finished in the top 15 to earn individual medals, with Nerea Northrop and Nikhita Saldi both less than 12 seconds off the podium.  The 2023 freshman girls’ team time was a minute faster than the 2019 class that included Sarah Feng, Claire Chang, Anjali Thontakudi and Sanjana Borle–who went on to be part of three State teams and the 2019 CCS championship team.  Distance running success is a long term project, but this group is off to a great start!

The freshmen girls were a tough act to follow, but the sophomore boys were up to the challenge.   Matthew Sun, Justin Yu and Andrew Cole all had solid PRs to lead MVXC to a strong 8^th place finish.  Matt and Justin both ended up on the podium, part of an impressive  haul that saw Monta Vista bring home 17 individual and team medals.

With the morning still cool, the varsity girls got on the starting line for one of the Sweepstakes Championship races—these races are where the top teams are matched head to head.    Sylvana Northrop and Triya Roy got out towards the front as they have all year, hanging with the front group of elite Championship runners to both finish on the podium.  Triya put up a solid half-minute PR in her last race on the historic Mt SAC course.   Jannah Sheriff, Ellie Hsu (with a PR) and Rachel Jiang closed out the scoring for the varsity girls and a tenth place finish in the Individual Sweepstakes race.  The girls recorded the fourth best team time by Monta Vista ever at Mt. SAC—only a half minute back of last year’s team that went on to win CCS!

The Varsity boys toed the line ready to make a mark.   Rohun Agrawal put together a stunning race, matching the lead pack stride for stride and ultimately breaking free with one other runner.   Rohun finished in second place overall; not far back, Andrew Richardson, Nitin Subramanian, Sahil Goel and Kyle Tsujimoto came in a half-minute apart to give the Monta Vista five PRs for the varsity team and a fourth place finish—a mere eight points off the podium.

The varsity boy’s team time set a two minute Monta Vista team PR on the course—and what looks to me like the second fastest team time by a CCS team at Mt SAC this year!  This group is rolling and is ready for the post-season–we can’t wait!  This has already been a special year for the Monta Vista boys and it sure looks like their hard work is building to a post-season to remember.

Freshman Alex Nguyen was the first runner in for the boy’s JV team, while Vibha Iyengar and Vivian Cheng both were on the podium for the JV girls.  This was an impressive day from start to finish!

Out of 17 MVXC athletes who had already run races at Mt. SAC, 14 ran PRs—more than 80%!  That achievement is a tribute to how hard the team has been working…everyone should be feeling great about the effort that the team and individuals have been making all season long.  This team is rolling and ready to make a splash in the final races of the 2019 XC season!

Distance running rewards persistence and consistent effort.  This team has demonstrated all the traits that the best distance runners have…our runners have a lot of potential for long term success.  Let’s go, MVXC!

Complete Monta Vista results are available at XCStats.

Next up are the first step in the championship portion of the season, as we head to Lynbrook for the FUHSD championships on October 31.

Monta Vista New PRs at Mt. SAC

10-26-19