After the excitement of our UK women’s league promotion it was back to Southern Women’s League action for our women’s team and we had a hard earned victory over a determined Yeovil / Wells team who were just behind us in the League.
Knowing that Medway & Maidstone had withdrawn from the league made it a three club match and a chance to close the gap on the league leaders but we went into the match with only five athletes who competed in our final Uk women’s league match at Leeds, and with a sprinkling of under 17s and vets managed to hang on for a win in a competitive match.
The first event, the pole vault, showed great promise for the future with three young athletes vaulting very well through Francesca Meade U17 recording 2.30m as a non scorer and Josie Rampley (U20) and Freya Cooper (U17) clearing 2.10m in their first competitions. Hazel Ashby Thomas is another young athlete who will be eligible for our UK Women’s League team next summer and she won the B string long jump and high jump held on wet and difficult conditions.
We were dominant in the sprints where Michelle Watson & Under 17 Vanessa Le Fon recorded maximum points whilst Lyndsey St Luce Boyce showed good form in the non scoring races winning the other match 100m. Funto Fabumni-Alade & Hannah Edwards both clinched 400m A & B string wins but we struggled in the middle distance races where we again had no senior women distance runners and had to cover the events through U17s & vets. Sarah Allen won the B string 3000m but we really should have more support from our senior women in this area.
Briony Phillips scored 19 out of 20 points in her events with A string hammer, discus and shot wins and in the throws we marginally had the better of the Yeovil athletes with Barbara MacAnas & Sharon St Luce picking up points in the B string. We scored well in the jumps where Rebecca Zelic won the triple jump & came second in the long and high jump as well as the 100m hurdles.
After the opening events heavy rain for two hours made conditions difficult and spoilt chances of PBs on the day but with the sun coming out and steam rising from the drying track we won the sprint relay in 50.7 to confirm our match win. Our match points score of 115 was reduced by 5 pts to 110 pts which will enable us to close the gap on the league leaders going into the final match on 3rd September.
Steve Bosley.