Courtesy of Todd Tokubo

Junior Max Nyden hands off the baton to sophomore Advay Salhotra in the Dublin Distance Fiesta on March 21.

At the track and field team’s latest meet against Wilcox on March 26, the boys’ varsity team won 79-48, the girls’ varsity team lost 78-56, the boys’ JV team won 44-43 and the girls’ JV team lost 65-59. 

SHS’s top 13 track athletes were selected to run the Dublin Distance Fiesta invitational at Dublin High School on March 21, which occurred on March 20-21. Freshman Arjun Garlapati, who specializes in the 800m and 1600m, recorded his new personal best time of 1:59.15 in the 800m and placed 42nd out of 1201 athletes.

The team continued to dominate the distance, hurdles, jumps and sprint events in meets. Many strong distance runners finished with first-place times at their meet against Wilcox, including sophomore runner Mihith Verma in the 1600m run with a time of 4:59.74 and senior Jack Dong in the 3200m run with a time of 11:12.70. 

Alongside those who achieved top spots within their events, junior Anish Thota led the JV squad by winning in the 1600m with a strong 5:09.06. On the girls’ varsity team, sophomore Claire Hou took first in the 1600m event with a time of 5:34.35, beating the rest of her competitors by a full 30 seconds.

The hurdlers and jumpers captured similar victories to those of the distance event runners. Junior Joseph Zhao made a massive point contribution to the varsity boys’ team by winning both the 110m hurdles in 17.80 and the 300m hurdles in 44.56. Sophomore Chelsea Liang mirrored Zhao’s success, placing first in the 100m hurdles in 18.13 and the 300m hurdles in 51.14. In the jump events, junior Max Nyden took first in the triple jump with a leap of 39-01.00.

Senior Lavanya Bose placed 3rd in the 100m hurdles, finishing with a time of 19.48. Although she ran her season-best time at the Wilcox meet, it wasn’t her all-time best: 19.1. Timing issues at the Wilcox and Monta Vista events made it difficult for Bose to tell if she was beating her own record.

In the future, Bose plans to strengthen herself physically, working on building strength and reducing fear and hesitation in future meets. 

To train her speed and acceleration, she plans to lift weights, practice acceleration drills like falling starts, sled pulls and hill sprints, and end with plyometrics after her workouts. Plyometrics are explosive, jump-based exercises that help train an athlete’s ability to apply force quickly — strengthening how fast they can produce power and easing the tension and stiffness in their bodies. 

“The 100 is one of those events where if you can get point-something seconds off, it means a lot,” Bose said. “I feel like you can do that when you lift more often, and you do more plyometrics.”

The sprint and relay events had tremendous success. Freshman Alexander Khain showed great speed by winning first place in the varsity 400m run with a time of 52.77, and sophomore Aparna Iyer picked up a big win in the varsity 100m event in 13.97. In the 4x100m relay events, the boys’ JV won with a time of 48.56 and the girls’ JV won with a time of 57.27. 

The varsity girls saw enormous success with their 4x400m team. At the March 18 league meet against Monta Vista, the all-underclassmen girls team consisting of freshman Sofia Gonzalez, sophomore Elise Hubert, sophomore Kayley Ren and Liang achieved a team record of 4:29.61, shaving nearly 10 seconds off from their previous record of 4:39.07. A week later, against Wilcox, a new team composed of Gonzalez, Liang, Ren and Hou set a new best by a run of 4:26.64 — only four seconds behind the previous year’s team record from mostly seniors.

At the Wilcox meet, along with winning the varsity 800m distance event with a stellar time of 2:04.06, Garlapati participated in the varsity boys’ 4x400m relay. He, along with junior Debesh Das Sharma, freshman Alexander Khain and junior Max Nyden, achieved first with a new record of 3:35.34.

In the first leg, Garlapati’s team led with a 40-50 meter gap. Then, the second leg widened that gap by about 40 meters — putting it at about an 80-meter lead. However, on the third leg, Nyden fell right before Garlapati got the baton, slowing the handover. Still, Garlapati was able to finish and improve his team’s record time of 3:38.20 by about 3 seconds. 

“We had a big improvement by three seconds, which is really cool, because we all ran a lot faster than last week,” Garlapati said. “We had to mix people — some people went out of the team, and some came into the team.”

For practice, the team usually practices handoffs — working in pairs 30 meters apart to get into the habit of exchanging the baton. The main goal of baton exchange training is to pass on the baton smoothly without losing time, which keeps the momentum in the run. 

Garlapati aims to work along with his relay team to score a new personal record. For individual events, he hopes to cut down three seconds from his previous record in the 800m — 1:59 achieved at the Dublin Distance Fiesta.

“I think if I just keep working, I can get there, and our relay team can also get down a few seconds if we just keep practicing,” he said.

The track and field team continues to make great progress from the early seasons to now. From seeing the athletes embrace the workouts, watching their times go down and working harder at practice, head coach Archie Ljepava is optimistic about the team’s progress. 

After watching the 4x400m relay team improve at Wilcox, he believes the underclassmen can help lead the team further and even beat the school’s record of 3:21.

“They’re excellent, and they’re all underclassmen. We’re running with two freshman boys and two junior boys, so overall, they’re looking outstanding,” Ljepava said. “If they keep their hard work up, I think we can challenge the school record next year.” 

The track and field team looks forward to further improvement and to the growing potential of the underclassmen. The team’s next meet is at Santa Clara on April 23.