The Under 13 and Under 15 squads were back in action on track at Hemel Hempstead last weekend. The weather was nearly perfect: a touch too warm at times, but favourable for our young sprinters (writes Tracey Gould).
Clocking up an amazing new personal best of 11.7 seconds over the 100m, in only his second appearance for the club was Phoenix Lyon in the A string 100m race (see photo). His comfortable win was backed up in the B string race by Tyrik Banza in his first race for the club, winning with a fantastic time of 12.2 seconds.
In the 200m, Reade Owen and Daniel O’Sullivan both produced personal bests of 24.6 and 25.2 respectively and both finished second in their races. More PBs came in the 300m with Reef Hook winning the A string race in 38.5 seconds and Freddie Scarborough finished 3rd in the B race in 42.9.
It was much harder going in the heat for our young middle distance athletes, nevertheless Lucas Sheehan ran a great race and finished 4th in what was a fast 800m, Patrick Owen ran to a comfortable win in the B string race and running close to his PB in 2:25.7. William Coutts and Alex Suntung also ran in the 800m and produced personal bests. Coutts ran a fine 2:32.6 and Suntung 2:39.8.
The 1500m saw George Kerry making his first appearance in the league this year following injury. He cruised to a comfortable win, close to his PB in 4:45.5. Naoki Kanai provided a fine back-up, winning with a personal best of 5:03.0 in the B string race.
The relays were hugely exciting and our U15s showed once again they are a force to be reckoned with. The team of Daniel, Reef, Reade and Phoenix blew the field away to finish first in a fast 47.5 seconds. The 4 x 300m team of Maateo, Patrick, William and Freddie ran a storming race to finish in 2nd place with a time of 3:01.9.
On the field, Owen and O’Sullivan paired up once again for the Long Jump. The pair leaped 5.49m, and 5.07m respectively to win both strings of the event. The High Jump produced more personal bests with Lucas Sheehan jumping 1.45m to finish 3rd in the A event with Maateo Vao winning the B event easily with his jump of 1.40m.
Sheehan also won the A string Hammer and Freddie Scarborough the B, securing more valuable points for this strong under 15 boys’ team. Another win came in the Shot with Reef Hook throwing a personal best of 8.91m. Tyrik Banza threw for the first time and finished 2nd in the B string with 7.51m.
The Javelin produced yet another win. Young thrower Luke Miller threw the Javelin out to 39.15m which is just shy of his PB. Maateo Vao finished 3rd in the B string event throwing a PB of 17.03m.
Miller and O’Sullivan teamed up in the Discus again, Miller finished 3rd with a throw of 20.79m. O’Sullivan produced yet another personal best in the Discus, throwing 20.23m to finish 2nd in the B event.
The under 13 boys also had some great performances. Louis Clow once again stormed to victory over the 75m Hurdles, finishing in a fast 13.3 seconds. He jumped a massive 4.32m in the Long Jump leaping into 2nd place and also ran a fine 100m to finish 3rd.
Kirk Lebdiri ran a steady 1500m and produced his trademark sprint finish to claim 5th in a new personal best of 6:07. Kian Moynihan in his first outing for the club also finished 5th in the B string race. The pair also competed in the Shot Put, Moynihan throwing 5.38m to finish 4th and Lebdiri finished 3rd with his Put of 4.66m. They notched upmore valuable points in the High Jump, Moynihan finishing 6th in the A string event with Lebdiri finishing 4th in the B.
Max Jacobs and Sudeys Hersi, two more first timers, showed great promise in their first appearance for the club. They teamed up for the 800m, Hersi finished 6th in the A race and Jacobs 4th in the B. They also threw the Javelin, where Jacobs finished 6th. Hersi’s inexperience meant his throws were deemed invalid but he picked up more valuable points by finishing 6th in a fast 200m race.
The girls proved how good they were at multi-tasking. The U13s had just 4 members in the squad: Lucy O’Brien, Sarah Freegard, Anisa Ibrahim and Ines Maret. They each competed in the maximum allowable number of events and produced some great performances. Lucy’s win in the 800m was particularly impressive. She ran a mature, controlled race and finished in 2:32.8 just a second off her PB. Lucy and Ines teamed up again over the 70m Hurdles to finish 3rdand 2nd in the A & B event.
Lucy and Sarah both Jumped well in the Long Jump to finish 4th in both the A and B events, Sarah’s jump of 3.35m was yet another personal best achieved on Sunday.
The U15s had a slightly bigger squad but still had to cope with a couple of last minute pull-outs. The Laura’s had a great day. Sprinter Laura Davies produced PBs in both the 100 and 200m and Laura Stewart in the Hurdles and 300m. Stewart also ran a fine time of 2:33.7 to finish 2nd in the 800m.
Nicola Ravenhill again produced a terrific win in the A string 1500m race finishing in 5:15.4. Roisin Lynch finished 2nd in the B event running a seasons best time of 5:32.2. Sprinter Hannah Thurston again showed her dominance in the 300m and Long Jump by winning both events comfortably. Thurston also threw the Shot out to 7.05m to finish in a respectable 3rd place. She was joined by Maryam Hussain who threw in the B string to also finish in 3rd. Middle distance athlete Hussain won the B string 800m comfortably in a time of 2:46.3.
The talented U15 girls 4 x 100m relay team ran a super-fast race to finish 2nd just behind Hillingdon AC. The U13 team finished 5th.
Special mention goes to Amber Henry in her first appearance for the club and Beth Neil who both stepped into events on the day to help out and score more valuable points.
With only more match to go we hope to get bigger teams out and dominate in our home fixture.
Full results here