MVHS joins more than 30 schools in meet

On Sept. 29, the Stanford golf course was not filled with golf balls or the sounds of golf clubs, but rather with the thousands of people watching and participating in the Stanford Invitational cross country meet. The 5K race included more than 30 high schools including MVHS. The race in which only varsity runners ran is considered one of the highest level meets of the season according to junior John Hsiao.
The MVHS boys, struggling with sickness and injuries, started out strong but began to struggle as the race continued and ended up 19th out of 35 schools. The boys team was led by sophomore Rohan Choudhury, who placed 64th out of 244 runners. Others in the team continued to use pack running, a strategy in which they run together to encourage and motivate each other; junior John Hsiao and seniors Jeffrey Harrison and Steven Ting, using this strategy, finished within seven seconds of each other.

“I think we did pretty well. All of us got under 18:15 which is a six-minute [mile] pace,” Hsiao said.

The MVHS girls team, one that has exceeded expectations for this season, proved once again why they are one of the top teams in the league. The girls finished fifth out of 27 competing schools with sophomore Jenny Xu leading the girls team with a very strong time of 19:14.

“I wanted to get top ten, and I did. So I met my expectations for the meet,” Xu said.

Both the boys and girls teams have high expectations for the upcoming meets, as Stanford is only the third meet of the season.

“I think we’re going to smash our next meet,” Choudhury said.

The Matadors’ next meet will be on Oct. 9 at Crystal Springs in Belmont