With a time of 41.89 seconds at Friday’s CCS Top 8 track and field meet, the Los Altos High boys 4×100 meter relay team broke a school record set the year gas averaged 39 cents a gallon, “The Exorcist” was the top movie in theaters and the MRI was invented.
“The previous record, we believe, is from 1973 (42.19), so it’s been 50 years since last broken,” Eagles co-head coach Dave Barth said. “The team was flying around the track and the handoffs were clean.”
That allowed the team of Ata Sen, Zach Fagin, Leo Goebel and Nathaniel Guillory to finish just ahead of Sacred Heart Prep (42.06) for first place Friday at Los Gatos High. The Eagles now rank first in the Central Coast Section and 12th in the state.
“All four of these team members have worked so hard – not just this season, but the prior seasons as well,” said Barth, who added that they’ve been eyeing the record since the season began. “It was great to see the record fall; we definitely enjoyed this race and now it’s time to refocus to see if we can improve upon the record again and prepare for the upcoming championship meets.”
While it wasn’t a school record, the Los Altos girls 4×100 team set a new season standard at the meet. The team of Gwendolyn Mello, Daniela Hughes, Ananya Vaswani and Paige Kasso placed third with a 49.37.
Individually, Lydia Anderson had the highest finish among the Eagles competing at the Top 8. The freshman placed second in the girls 3,200 run with a personal-best 11:05.13 that co-head coach Steph MacKenzie described as “incredible.” It was only the second time Anderson had run the 3,200.
Fellow freshman Lily Symon took third in the girls 800 with a personal record 2:17:02.
Jasleen Sidhu finished fifth in the girls 1,600 by clocking a 4:54.94, and Kasso was fifth in the 100 with a personal-record 12.54.
Back to the boys, Guillory was third in the 200 (personal-best 21.80) and Fagin came in fourth in the 100 (10.68).
Mountain View sophomore Hannah Rutherford “came out of the blocks with a vengeance” in the girls 100 dash, according to Spartans sprint coach Mark Rutner, winning in a school-record time of 24.55.
Rutherford also anchored Mountain View’s 4×400 relay team, which finished fourth with a 4:05.69. The Spartans were in seventh when she took the baton.
On the boys side, Spartan senior Evan Markelz set a personal record in the 1,600 with a second-place time of 4:16.45 that is less than a second shy of the school record.
Gymnastics
Paced by all-around champion Misty Mukherjee, Mountain View won last week’s Gilroy Invitational 2. The Spartans’ team score of 148.300 bested St. Francis (146.200), Los Altos (106.200) and Christopher (40.750) at the April 18 meet.
Competing in her first high school meet of the season, Mukherjee posted an all-around score of 37.600. The junior tied for first on the vault (9.200), placed second on the uneven bars (9.750) and tied for second on the floor exercise (9.500).
Teammate Alyssa Ong, also making her season debut, took second all-around with a 36.950. The junior won bars (9.800) and floor (9.650).
“Misty and Alyssa both had great meets, with beam being their weakest events, but I know that they will hit their beam routines at the future meets,” said Sarah Wallace, the coach of Los Altos and Mountain View.
St. Francis’ Abby Tsao (36.550) and Lauren Imelli (36.500) finished third and fourth, respectively, all-around. Fifth-place finisher Anna Kolpakova (36.250) of Mountain View “had another really strong meet,” Wallace said.
Sarah Mosalem led Los Altos with an all-around score of 35.900 that put her in a tie for seventh with Mountain View’s Alice Chegwidden. Wallace said Mosalem “had an awesome meet, one of the best she has had.” The senior tied Mukherjee for first on vault with a 9.200.
“Her routines may not be the most difficult,” Wallace said of Mosalem, “but she always is very clean and does not give many deductions for the judges to take, which results in receiving really good scores.”
Boys lacrosse
Los Altos climbed to second place in the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division by winning both games last week. The Eagles beat Palo Alto 11-8 and Carlmont 13-5, improving to 4-2 in league and 7-3 overall.
Jack Wald scored seven goals over the two games and Owen Lee had five.
Los Altos led at halftime in both games, thanks not only to balanced scoring, but the defense led by goalie Raiden Mori and the play of midfielder Tyler Crissman, who won more than 60% of his face-offs.
