Our second match in the UK Womens League match was always going to be the most difficult due to a clash with the English Schools championships which deprived us of eight athletes and with Katie Snowden also unavailable as she prepared for the World Youth Games in Lille were were up against it to build on our impressive victory in match one.
At the English Schools Funto Fabumni-Alade won the senior girls 200m at the English Schools champs in Gateshead – her second English Schools title with HCA Shanice Harrison winning bronze in the same race. Gabriella Roseje won a bronze medal in the senior girls shot putt. In all we had nine senior girls athletes selected for the English schools champs (Hannah Edwards was unfortunately ill and unable to travel & Rosa Wuilliams was away) Funto, Gabriella were joined by Angharad, Charlotte, Aisha, as well as Shanice meaning we were without nine top junior athletes for our Uk womens league match at Crawley.
UK womens league result
Crawley 204
Leeds City 200
HHH 170
Reading 168
Belgrave 165
Liverpool 145
Channel Islands 107
Coventry 0.
It was a topsy-turvy match with Leeds City rallying from seventh place in match one to nearly snatch a win and City of Liverpool second in match 1 and looking strong faltering badly and only coming sixth. We battled hard despite several gaps and with every point counting managed to snatch third place late on for a vital six points which puts us in a strong position with one match remaining.
We scored well in the sprints where Denise Osei had a sprint winning double and Michelle Watson won the 100m B string before just being out-dipped in the 200m. Cathy Ansell repeated her match one win in the 3000m breaking away at halfway for a convincing win and just being out sprinted on the final lap for second place in the 1500m. HCA member Adelle Tracey who decided not to contest the English schools due to illness ran a seasons best of 2.10.7 in the 800m & Karen Ellison was a valuable third in the B string 3000m.
Elswehere on the track it was a question of sneaking as many points as we could, we got valuable points in the 400m hurdlers through juniors Emily Seager & Jessica Quartey Pigot & Jade Fyffe & Alexandra Shamloll were fifth in the sprint hurdles & 800m B strings respectively. Lyndsey St Luce Boyce & Alexandra covered the 400m at short notice & all their points enabled us to sneak into third place. Throughout the afternoon we were fourth or fifth until the final half hour when a spate of throwing results pushed us into third but our lack of numbers led to some disappointing relays and we just held on for third place.
The throws as usual supplied lots of points in the field events. HCA member Selina Walters (39.45m) and Briony Phillips (32.25m) came third and first in the hammer & Briony was 3rd in the shot with Selina 2nd Junior Javonique Ekra was fourth in the javelin with 31.63m in her first competition this season with Selina fourth and Briony and mother Barbara McAnas scored valuable points in the discus with second and third places.
We struggled in the jumps although Rebecca Zelic was second in the triple jump (to go with her fourth in the 100m hurdles). Vicky Awanah made a comeback to competition after giving birth and although unable to get the opening height in the pole vault got marks in the high and triple jumps.
Despite all the absentees we only failed to cover a small amount of events and in the end we had a two point advantage over Reading but with several of our rivals having bad matches we improved our league position. The current table after two matches with one match to go is.
HHH 14 pts (426 pts)
Crawley 13 (365)
Reading 12 (364)
Liverpool 9 (333)
Leeds 9 (329)
Belgrave 7 (324)
Channel islands 6 (267)
Coventry 2 (93).
So with the final match at Leeds its in our hands and if we can come in the top three we should be guaranteed of promotion given our advantage of 55 total points scored – the league is decided on the match points.
Steve Bosley.