What a great ride!
Friday, June 1, 2018 will be a day that many of us remember–not least, Monta Vista alumna and soccer refugee Nanda Nayak, who graduated from high school in the morning, piled into Coach McKeeman’s car at noon, and at 5:06pm was in Zone 2 on the blue Mondo track at Buchanan High School in Clovis, ready to take the baton in the girls’ 4x100m relay prelims in the California State Championship!
Yes, fans, from the first day of practice on January 29, our team has come a long way. We didn’t know that two freshman tennis players and a senior that was still on the soccer team would be teamed with the returning #14 100m girl in the Central Coast Section to form a powerhouse relay squad that would go all the way to the State meet in four months. Who could have predicted that? (However, this does support one of Coach Flatow’s often-stated beliefs. Coach says that there are many people walking around the halls of Monta Vista that have undiscovered athletic and track talent, and these people just don’t realize the talent they have. That talent, combined with some grit and hard work, can result in amazing accomplishments–even a trip to State! Encourage your friends to come out for track in 2019. Let our powers combine!)
Back to our regularly schedule programming.
At 5:06, the gun went off and Evelyn How launched out of the blocks (the super cool electronic blocks with speaker so everyone hears the gun at the same instant–so cool). Before thousands of fans–yep, thousands–she poured around that first curve and had a clean pass to Brooke Young, who hammered down the track and passed the stick to recent grad Nanda Nayak (a high school graduate for about seven hours at this point). Nanda ran the curve with her customary precision before Bianca Young got the baton and brought it home.
Heat 2, our heat, turned out to be stacked. Four of the finals qualifiers came from our heat, including the second, third and fourth fastest qualifying times of the day (Calabasas, Sheldon and Arcadia). Monta Vista ran in Lane 3 with those three teams in 4, 5 and 6. As you can see from the photo sequence below, that made for a screaming fast race–it looked like the Olympics! We were part of a great race and at the end of the day Monta Vista finishes the year 12th in California. Here is the prelim day final results:
- Serra 45.74 (traditional California sprint power)
- Calabasas 45.95 (Heat 2, Lane 5, Southern Section Champion)
- Sheldon 46.43 (Heat 2, Lane 6)
- Arcadia 46.80 (Heat 2, Lane 4, another track power)
- Bishop O’Dowd 47.15
- Long Beach Poly 47.22 (defending State team champions)
- Olympian 47.36 (San Diego Section champions)
- Santa Margarita 47.49 (Heat 2, Lane 7)
- St. Mary’s College 47.70 (Last finals qualifier)
- Carson 47.72
- Pittsburg 47.72 (Heat 2, Lane 8)
- Monta Vista 48.04 (Heat 2, Lane 3)(12 in your program, number 1 in your hearts)
- San Marcos 48.10
- Silver Creek 48.16 (#2 team from CCS)
- Menlo-Atherton 48.16 (Heat 2, Lane 2) (#3 team from CCS)
- Vista Del Lago 48.31
- Central 48.36
- Redondo Union 48.39 (another SoCal track powerhouse)
- Bakersfield 48.51
- Clovis North 48.89 (Heat 2, Lane 9) (Central Valley power)
- Dorsey 49.09 (famous speed school)
- Birmingham 49.44
- Woodcreek 49.82
- Yreka 51.34
- Mission Hills DQ
It was an amazing day and a good way to end the season! We get three of our four athletes back in 2019, together with nearly 100 returning boys and girls from this year’s team. But before we look ahead, I hope that everyone takes a moment to look back at a really fun and satisfying year. We worked really hard to be standing on the track in Clovis on June 1–not only these four girls, but all the kids that showed up to practice every day, rain or shine, hot and cold. Everyone who helped make the team culture fun and hardworking, gritty and supportive, helped everyone else on the team work hard and be their best. And since everyone on the team contributed to the team culture, everyone on the team also was present, in a way, with the four girls on the track at the State Meet. Congratulations to all of us!
After the race, Evelyn looked at me and said, ‘coach, when is the first practice?’ Evelyn…the answer is January 28, 2019. Who knows what the 2019 season will bring? I sure don’t…but I’m looking forward to finding out!
Exchange Three
Here is a sequence of still photos from exchange 3 between Nanda and Bianca. I switch around between tighter photos and broader photos so you can see both the craziness of high speed handoffs during a fast, deep meet with lots of competition, and also the size and scale of the track and the crowds. Its impressive that athletes can perform so well in this environment (only one DQ out of 25 entries). I get chills!
