Athletics during 2021 has been consistently weird and different as we work through a pandemic, yet Monta Vista track and field was able to keep one of our important traditions–the season opening 400 Shoot Out!
Coach John McKeeman brought us the 400 Shoot Out when he arrived at Monta Vista in 2014. When Coach John was a high school track athlete, his team held their own 400m time trial at the beginning of the year to evaluate the 4x400m relay pool…and Monta Vista picked up the tradition. Even though Coach John has decamped to Idaho, we have continued the tradition of the Shootout for an eighth year!
The opening heat featured a classic opening contest between the boy throwers…and Henry Hodgkins took home his first (unofficial) thrower’s championship with a sparkling 63.77 mark and a full two second personal record! We are looking forward to Henry’s season opening fitness includes his throwing–it would be wonderful for Henry to have a senior season filled with PRs. Anoushka Lakshmi won the girl’s thrower heat, barely holding off freshman Alice Ross 83.70 to 84.21. Alice had joined the track team about 40 minutes prior to the gun going off, certainly a record from first roll call to first race and first piece of SWAG earned (Alice’s field hockey season had concluded the day before). That’s part of the 400 Shootout tradition–we throw everyone in the fire!
Heat after heat quickly followed, as senior Andrew Richardson displayed veteran savvy in sandbagging his way to victory in an early heat, while freshman Megan Nieh and sophomore Katherine Shen paced their flights. In the penultimate (mostly) girls heat, Cash Bowman jumped into an open lane to help push freshman Valerie Alzenberg to her quick 66.43, while senior Jason Yip won the corresponding boys race. The top heats did not feature last year’s pageantry–coaches were too intimidated by Coach John’s expertise to try to fill those shoes–yet the races still had the same excitement. As the crowd of teammates went wild, Sylvana Northrop and Sotirios Kougiouris claimed their spots atop the podium in the 8th Annual 400 Shoot Out!
Top Three Girls: Sylvana Northrop 66.19, Valerie Ayzenberg 66.43, Agnes Wang 68.70
Top Three Boys: Sotirios Kougiouris 56.26, Rohun Agrawal 56.61, Andrew Richardson 57.33.
Personal Records Set: Valerie Ayzenberg, Nikhita Saldi (first time sub-70!), Jasmine Varma, Megan Nieh, Ryland Adzich, Katherine Shen, Yvonne Chen, Iniyaa Suresh, Alice Ross, Anika Manjesh, Preetal Deshpande, Sotirios Kougiouris, Rohun Agrawal (a two second PR, right after being vaccinated; that improved kick will be an asset next year running for his college team at CalTech!), Jason Yip, Denny Dong, Andrew Cole (first time sub-60, that kick will be scary!), Henry Hodgkins, Max Ready, Sean Basu, Cash Bowman, Adrian Du, Alex Nguyen, Ari Rajaram, Aaron Ryoo, Vincent Fu, Arnav Laktar, Amogh Rajagopal, Rahul Shankar.
Complete results are up on Lynbrook Sports.