“Success rests in having the courage and endurance, and above all, the will to become the person you can be.”
–George Sheehan
There is nothing quite like the Mt. SAC Invitational. Walking into the Mt. San Antonio College stadium at dawn, seeing thousands of athletes getting ready to compete, will make anyone feel excitement deep in their stomach. By the time the sun comes up and the gun for first race goes off in the chill of the morning until the last Monta Vista race ends in the dusty heat of midday, there is non-stop action for every athlete.
For Monta Vista, Mt. SAC weekend starts on Friday when we load the bus in the dark and head south. After a stop for lunch we arrive in West Covina in early afternoon, take a quick shakeout run, and after a swim, dinner and some games (or homework) we are asleep and ready for an early start the next day.
First up were early morning races for our junior varsity runners, where Richard, Atharva and Aidan all recorded PRs and Bhavna, running as the only MV runner in a JV girls race, finished with a fine 58th place out of 140 runners.
Soon afterwards, our varsity teams were up. The varsity boys ran an exceptional team race, with a gap of only 49 seconds from Bennett’s 12th place finish to our fifth runner, Derek. This tight pack (which could be even tighter when Andy Fang is included in the varsity team) can be very effective, particularly in big races such as CCS. At Mt. SAC, the varsity boys finished in 4th place, a mere 15 points o off the podium. Bennett and Jeffrey both scored individual medals and EVERY varsity boy PRed—amazing!—headlined by Derek’s 1:32 improvement.
The varsity girls looked very dialed in and ready for the post season as they grabbed a second place team finish. Kelly lead the attack with a second place finish in 19:07, Sarah also scored an individual medal with her 7th place finish, and Claire, Triya and Salma closed out the runner up finish. We still have not had all of our top seven girls healthy and present in the same race, but we are getting close and ready for championship season. Kelly, Salma and Sarah all recorded PRs.
Our freshman boys continued to show great promise with their podium finish, taking second in their race. The boys showed their depth with a very impressive 26 second gap! Kyle lead the group with an 8th place finish in 18:08, Vish was a mere second behind, and Nitin, Pranesh and Jeff in a close pack to close out the scoring. This group shows a lot of potential, and if they continue to work hard as a group the next four years will be memorable (and we hear that the next group from Kennedy is strong also).
The sophomore classes, boys and girls, impressed us as we closed out our day. Andy Fang had a thrilling race, moving from about 15th at the mile point in his race, to 7th at the half way point, and finally taking the lead at the water tank with 800m to go and holding off a spirited charge from a Garfield runner to hold on to a one-second victory! The individual winners at Mt. SAC are awarded a cowbell; this is a rare token, one that only a few that Monta Vista athletes possess. Ryan also medaled for Monta Vista. The sophomore girls also put on a show, with Anjali, Sanjana and Lauren finishing 6-7-8—within 4 seconds of each other—to all take home medals.
The largest MV PRs were 51 seconds for Sanjana, and Richard’s 2:10. Overall, MV athletes recorded 17 PRs, the most ever (last year we had 13, for reference). The varsity, JV, sophomore and freshman boys teams all had team PRs, while the varsity girls had a 5 second improvement over last years’ team (which finished second in CCS).
Overall Monta Vista took home 26 medals and two plaques! Success is measured by improvement and effort, not by hardware…but still…hardware is pretty nice! It sure looks good up there on the wall and hanging around our necks.
Well done, Monta Vista!
Complete Mt. SAC results are available at XCStats.
Baylands 5km
With Baylands only a few days before Mt. SAC, many athletes get to try something new and shine in the process.
Even with most of the regular varsity team staying home and prepping for Mt. SAC, Akshara and Serena lead MV to an 8th place finish in the varsity girls race. Newcomer Kelly Wang also got her first crack at running in a varsity race. The JV girls, lead by Melinda and Athena, also took a credible 11th place. The varsity boys also represented well, finishing 10th, with rookies Aditya Kalari and Rohan Iyer both running Varsity for the first time. Aidan, Derek, Victor, Ethan Chen, Willam Zhang, Andy Fang and Serena all recorded PRs on the 5km Baylands course.
Complete Baylands results are available at XCStats.
Baylands concluded the three meet SCVAL Cup series. The first annual SCVAL Cup is designed to recognize consistently strong individual performance in the SCVAL cluster meets. Monta Vista had 25 SCVAL Cup honorees, trailing only Gunn among SCVAL schools.
2016 Monta Vista SCVAL Cup Honorees
Akshara Majjiga
Andrew Ma
Andy Fang
Anjali Thontakudi
Aravind Meyyappan
Bennett Zhang
Claire Chang
Derek Lee
Jeffrey Xu
Justin Lin
Kamyar Moradi
Kelly Bishop
Kyle Tsujimoto
Nitin Subramanian
Parvathi Meyyappan
Pranesh Balasubramaniam
Reema Apte
Ryan Niu
Salma Sheriff
Sanjana Borle
Sarah Feng
Scott Gregory
Serena Geis
Triya Roy
Vishwadeep Lella
“Success isn’t how far you got,
but the distance you traveled from where you started.”
–Steve Prefontaine