KEVIN AND JENNY GO ON TO CALIFORNIA STATE MEET
The successful 2011 season finished with great showings at the Central Coast Section Championships by Monta Vista’s boys and girls teams, while two individuals extended their seasons by another two weeks.
Both the boys and the girls teams qualified for the CCS Division 1 Championships at Crystal Springs on November 12. After some worries about rain, the day turned out to be perfect weather for cross country–cool, cloudy and breezy. The course was in good shape with a few muddy spots–great cross country conditions!
The Monta Vista boys started first and displayed a lot of fight for every spot. Kevin Bishop ran a strong, smart race the entire way, running in a comfortable position in approximately 5th place at the mile mark and moving up to finish a strong second, continually closing on the winner from Milpitas. Kevin’s 15:06 time on the 2.95 mile course is the fastest time ever by a Monta Vista runner at Crystal Springs. Senior Shivam Khanna finished second for MV with a 16:18, his fastest time at Crystal in his last XC race for MV, and freshman Emilio Torres-Gonzales also had a PR (personal record) day with a 16:31.
MV’s CCS team (Kevin Bishop, Shivam Khanna, Michael Lu, Ajay Rajamani, Takuto Doshiro, Emilio Torres-Gonzalez and Rohan Choudhury) finished 6th overall in CCS Division 1. Carlmont and Bellarmine, two traditionally strong teams, will represent CCS at the State Meet. Monta Vista gets 4 of our 7 runners back next year, so in addition to a great 2011, our future looks bright, too!
The girls Championship race started 35 minutes later, and displayed both teamwork and toughness. Several girls were fighting the nagging injuries that often crop up at the end of cross country seasons, but you could not tell at the top of the hill just past the one mile point, they were all putting in great races. Jenny was running comfortably at the back of the chase pack and Pearl, Bridget, Risako and Kirsten were all running in a fairly tight group. The girls displayed their trademark grit at the end of the race, fighting to the end. Jenny passed several runners in the last 800 meters to finish 5th, and Pearl, Bridget and Kirsten came in within 30 seconds of each other. Risako was a strong fifth runner as the MV Varsity girls team (Nandini Chitale, Neha Jammu, Pearl Law, Risako Tanida, Bridget Gottlieb, Kirsten Do and Jenny Xu) scored a remarkable 4th place in CCS Div 1 for 2011. Carlmont and Gunn were the top two teams and represent CCS at the California State Meet. Gunn’s team time of 1:36:38 was less than 4 minutes faster than Monta Vista’s! Last year, the Monta Vista girls were 4th in the DAL, and this year the girls were 4th in the CCS meet. What a great improvement!
While the season is done for the MV varsity teams, Kevin Bishop and Jenny Xu both qualified as individuals for the California State Meet to be held in two weeks at Toro Park in Fresno.
Over the last few days, some of the local coaches do a lot of analysis to figure out where (theoretically) teams rank throughout CCS and over larger regions. We say ‘theoretically’ because this is only comparing times, and so on race day with someone right in front of a runner, competitive nature can change results…but we digress. A couple data points are interesting. If we had ‘co-ed’ competitions, with 3 boys and 2 girls or 2 boys and 3 girls, in both cases Monta Vista would have finished 9th in CCS (including all divisions, not just division 1). This result is pretty cool given the closeness and support between the boys and the girls on the Monta Vista XC team…it’s too bad we don’t get to race co-ed once or twice a season, that would be fun!
Also there was a comparison posted of all the teams in Northern California, with our girls ranked 39th and the boys 41st–in all of Northern California! Not many schools had both teams ranked that high.
For the day, 9 of Monta Vista’s 14 runners on Saturday had their fastest times of the season, and for most of these runners these were also all-time Crystal PRs. That’s always the goal–ongoing improvement. But it is also impossible to improve every time we put on our racing shoes and get out to compete. When we try to find our limits, when we try to find out just how much we have inside us, when we try for greatness, every race will not be perfect. Sometimes it seems like the greatest runners have some of the most dismal races, because they put themselves out there at the limit. By putting themselves out there as individuals and doing their best for the team, Monta Vista had successful seasons for both boys and girls.
Our elite fan club is impressed, too. Josh Cox said ‘Awesome! Great job! Wish Kevin and Jenny good luck at State!’ and Desiree Davila sent a message, ‘WOW! Great job.’ Both of them said to pass along that they are really impressed with what the team has accomplished…so there you go!
Great job, TEAM!
CCS RESULTS
MONTA VISTA BOYS AVG: 16:32 TOTAL: 1:22:40 SPREAD: 2:17
MV CCS DIV 1 NAME TIME ================================================== 1 2 2 KEVIN BISHOP 15:06 2 55 25 SHIVAM KHANNA 16:18 3 87 39 EMILIO TORRES-GONZALEZ 16:31 4 200 72 TAKUTO DOSHIRO 17:22 5 205 75 AJAY RAJAMANI 17:23 6 (256) 93 MICHAEL LU 17:41 7 (335) 110 ROHAN CHOUDHURY 18:24
MONTA VISTA GIRLS AVG: 20:07 TOTAL: 1:40:35 SPREAD: 2:29
MV CCS DIV 1 NAME TIME ==================================================
1 18 5 JENNY XU 18:35 2 89 26 PEARL LAW 20:05 3 104 32 BRIDGET GOTTLIEB 20:13 4 131 42 KRISTEN DO 20:38 5 176 61 RISAKO TANIDA 21:04 6 (300) 101 NANDINI CHITALE 22:29 7 (340) 110 NEHA JAMMU 23:01