On March 17, 2022, the South El Monte High School Track team competed at the Mountain View stadium vs Mountain View High School at 3:15. 

The first runners were distance runners who ran 1600 equal to a mile. Both girls JV and Varsity teams ran together, after them, the boys JV and Varsity team would run together. 

The top three JV runners who placed were Sophomore April Ramos coming in at 1st place with a time of 6:27, Ashley Vasquez with a time of 7:30, and Arianna Amezcua with a time of 8:01. April Ramos says, “My goal for this year is to break 6 minutes in my mile.” The top runners who placed in varsity were senior Rosario Mariano’s time of 6:46, junior Yvette Lopez’s 7:13, and Victoria Fematt with a time of 7:32. Yvette Lopez said “The Mountain View track race was pretty easy because there weren’t lots of competitors on the other team, but overall it was pretty good.”

The top three Varsity runners from the boys were Richard Pablo with a time of 5:29, Angel Miranda with 5:34, and Jesus Soto at 5:36. Senior Captain Richard Pablo says, “I think MTV was a good race overall since I got 1st in all my events and my teammates got solid times.” JV runner Alfred Hernandez received a time of 5:52 coming in first place. Alfred said, “My goal is to reach my PR or better than my PR. I feel like I need more improvement on the 800.”

Finishing with distance performance, sprinters were next. Sprinters race distances of 100, 200, and 400 meters. The order of this event is first 400 meters, then 1000 meters, and lastly the 200 meter runners. 

The top runners with the best times for the 100m race for the guys were Erick Cazares’s time of 11.15, Michael Valencia’s 11.64, Omar Garcia’s 12.02, and Nathan Gordiano with a time of 12.49. Freshman Nathan Gordiano stated, “I need more improvement in my start. I need to practice more on block starts and my running form.” For the girls, Joselyn Zarate came in with the fastest time of 15.47, Alexis Rivera with 15.79, and Montserrat Sanchez’s time of 16.01. Junior Joselyn Zarate said, “What I can say about the Mountain View track meet was that they were really well prepared and the people there such as the runners were welcoming. Some of the sprinters offered to help us with the block starts if we didn’t know how to use them.”

For the 200m run the runners with the best times were Erick Cazarez’s time of 23.99, Angel Lorenzo’s 25.61, and Michael Valencia with a time of 24.99. Freshman Michael Valencia says, “My goals are to get faster and just be a better asset for the track team. I think I need the most improvement in longer distance runs because I tend to get tired.”

For the 400m run, the top runners were Angel Lorenzo with a time of 61.99, Justin Macias with 61.99, and Marcos Cortez’s time of 65.65. Senior Angel Lorenzo expressed, “My thoughts on the race was that we dominated mostly every event and I feel like we did the best we could, and I am satisfied with how we all did especially by noticing how we are all getting faster and improving from past races.” For the Girls 400 Helen Chau came in with a time of 72.12, and Natalie Villegas with 74.38. Senior Helen Chau explained, “My goal is to beat my PR time of 1:03 in the 400m and do my best in my last year of high school.”

As a result, our track team ended up defeating Mountain View High school. Boys Varsity won with a score of 64.5 to 43.5 and the boys JV won by a score of 66 to 31. As for the girl’s varsity, they won by a score of 60 to 14 and as for the girls JV they won by a score of 78 to 30.