MVXC Rocks At Lynbrook before SCVALs!

Bridget Gottlieb was a sophomore in 2011, when the Monta Vista girls team started a streak of Fremont Union High School District team championships.

Yes, that Bridget Gottlieb.

Bridget Aviv Gottlieb, first of her name.  The Lady of Crystal.  Destroyer of Records.    Spirit of the Matadors.  Tamer of Mustangs.  Possessor of the Two All-Americas.  That Bridget.

When Bridget, Jenny, Pearl, Risako, Neha, Nandini and Kirsten won that first FUHSD Championship, future team captain Anika Bhandarkar was four years old.  When told that the streak Bridget and her teammates started was kept alive by the new crowd, including Anika, Bridget commented:  “oh wow, that’s crazy…that makes me feel REALLY old.”  Amen, Bridget.

The first race of the day on October 27, 2002, at the FUHSD Championships / Lynbrook Invitational was the frosh-soph boys division.  Four sophomores and freshmen were waiting for the varsity race–this is a very young team!–yet the remaining young men rose to the challenge.  Freshman Sohan Beesetti was the first runner in for MVXC, notching a nice 12:18 mark that was good for 16th place and a medal.  Ethan Yang and Rishi Salvi came in within seconds of each other at 13:06 and 13:08; these two runners have been finishing near each other all season long (really close at Watermelon and De La Salle and pretty much side by side at Watermelon and both Baylands finishes as they progressed from race paces in the 8s to well below 7 minutes per mile).  These kind of competitive partnerships* can drive teammates to new levels of achievement, if runners continue to work together and support each other during the season, in workouts and in off-season training.  Andrew Liu, Kian Nava, Aaron Lin and Jay Zhang completed the top seven for the frosh-soph boys as they finished in fourth place (Homestead, Lynbrook, Fremont, Cupertino, Wilcox, Milpitas and Santa Clara were all at this cross country meet). 

The frosh-soph boys set the stage for a double championship defense by the varsity girls.  Nikhita Saldi went out hard from the gun with Wilcox top runner Miccea Kippes.  By the one mile point, Nikhita and Miccea had blown up the pack and were in a two-person race for the championship.  Nikhita and Miccea ended up finishing 1-2, just like last year–except that the two of them were 40 seconds faster than the year before (Nikhita:  12:41 in 2021, 12:03 in 2022; Miccea 13:03/12:23)!  Nikhita is one of the very few girls to successfully defend an FUHSD individual championship, and her 12:03 mark places her 6th all time in the Monta Vista record book between Sylvana Northrop (currently on the team at UCSD) and Triya Roy (currently running for Johns Hopkins).  Anika was the next finisher for Monta Vista, taking 6th place with a 13:21 mark; seniors Avani Kalari and Sydney Stevens were next in 9th and 11th place.  The three amigas Valerie Ayzenberg, Megan Nieh and Madi Polidoro were bunched with senior Nerea Northrop in 20th to 26th place, only 21 seconds apart, to ice the win for MVXC as the girls defended both team and individual championships!

In the varsity boys race, Denny Dong and Tanay Parikh set the pace once more, placing 8th and 14th; their 10:48 and 10:57 clockings put them in the top-20 all time for Monta Vista athletes on the Lynbrook course (and MV have had a LOT of good athletes run a LOT of races at Lynbrook!).  Freshman Ravi Polisetti continues to settle in on the varsity team; he was the first freshman across the line from any varsity squad on Thursday.  Ravi recorded a 11:26 mark, the 9th fastest ever for a Monta Vista freshman.   Seniors Ari Rajaram and Gene Zhou were next to complete the scoring as the boys took fourth, with Ruhaan Shah, William Wu and Darren Lin all having solid races.

The girls JV team matched the varsity squad with a win in their race, as Katie Lee and Jasmine Varma finished 1-3 to establish a solid lead; Meena Kolli, Hemani Kamarshi, Vera Bondar in a frantic finish with Lilia Murase, and Katie Li were all in the top 20.  Sean Basu let everyone know that he is already looking forward to the spring season, as he cut loose once he hit the track, passing several competitors in the last 200m to take 12th; Parmarth Joshi and Arda Cinnioglu joined Sean in the top 20 finishers as the boys took 5th as a team.

Complete results are posted, and Mr. Ma was out taking photos too!

*Just before I published this I got a text message from Rohun Agrawal.  Rohun had just finished competing in the SCIAC conference championships with his CalTech cross country team.  Rohun and his teammates finished higher than CalTech had ever finished before in conferences, and Rohun had a course PR that he credited in part to having fast teammates push him along.  Fast teammate partners can help you!

Personal Records Set at Lynbrook

Because last year the course had to be modified to accommodate construction, not many athletes had opportunities to set personal records–the course was different, unless you were a senior.  So the only course PRs, and they were big PRs, were set by:

Nikhita Saldi:  12:03, a 1:21 PR

Meena Kolli: 15:55, 1:25

Amogh Rajagopal:  13:57, 1:50

Ari Rajaram:  11:27, 1:21

While there were not a lot of PR opportunities, some noteworthy accomplishments include:  Nick Pantino dipping under a 7 minute/mile race pace for the first time, Arda lopping almost an full minute off his race pace at Baylands, Madi Polidoro had her debut in a varsity race and responded with a race pace under 7 minutes/mile for the first time in her life.

Senior Day

The Lynbrook Invitational is also the Senior Recognition meet…the Lynbrook team graciously announces the Monta Vista seniors, and the younger athletes make posters for our seniors…I have been told by alumni that these posters stay on their bedroom walls for many years in some cases!

And for fun…a championship retrospective!

A year-by-year listing of the 39 athletes who scored for Monta Vista at Lynbrook during Monta Vista’s FUHSD 12 year championship run!

2011

2012

2013

2015