A very depleted senior womens team set off to Reading on Saturday, 31st May for their second Premier Division fixture of the season. With nearly 30 of the senior/U17 squad missing as a results of clashes with other competitions, injuries, illness and half term holidays, things weren’t looking good considering the host club Reading were sitting at the top of the table with Herts Phoenix lying 4th after the first match. Results can be found via the results tab on the left of the page.

However, as they have done before, the athletes rallied round, dug in deep and managed to win the fixture by 10 clear points over Reading. This win was achieved by many athletes competing in events other than their regular ones and also competing in more than their usual number of events. The senior section was very well supported by the U15 section and between the 2 squads a total of 11 personal best performances were achieved at the match.

The first event for the seniors was the hammer with Eve Miller and Millie Lundgren. Unfortunately, Eve did not manage to record a distance following 3 no throws but Millie showed promise with a throw of 19.03m in an event that she has only just started to compete in. Shortly after the hammer was the long jump where two wins were recorded with Katie Caulfield winning the A string with a leap of 5.60m and Danielle Currie winning the B string with 4.76m. Millie then moved on to the Discus where she was joined by sister Peta in the first of her three events. Peta was 3rd in the A string with 27.00m and Millie won the B string with a throw of 24.91m.

The track started with the 300m Hurdles for U17 women and this saw the return to competition for Hannah Lloyd who had been injured for the first month of the season. Hannah showed that her injury problems were now well behind her winning the race in an impressive 46.4secs which is a PB for her and also entry standard for English Schools. Then followed the 400m Hurdles and with all the regular long hurdlers missing, this event was covered by Hayley Kruse and Clare Marsh who both finished 3rd in their respective races. This was shortly followed by the 100m sprint which was covered by Hayley Wills who is more used to running over longer distances and hurdler Stephanie Gaynor. Both athletes ran extremely well achieving PBs with Hayley coming second in the A string with 12.6 and Steph winning the B string with 13.0.

We then had the difficult situation of our two High Jump athletes Katie Caulfield and Hayley Kruse having clashes with other events with Katie due to hurdle and Hayley due to putt a shot at the same time as their High Jump. However, both girls showed their versatility with Katie rapidly clearing 1.50m to win the B string in the High Jump and then quickly rushing off, changing her spikes, nearly falling over at the start of her hurdles race but then recovering to come through strong to record her 3rd win of the day in the 80m hurdles with a time of 12.5. Meanwhile Hayley, cleared 1.50m in the High Jump, changed her spikes, rushed off to throw 8.47m to win the B string in the shot and then rushed back, a quick change of footwear again to clear 1.55m to win the A string High Jump. Peta Lundgren recorded her first win of the day by winning the A string shot throwing over 10m for the first time this season.

With no athletes available for the 800m, losing the team some valuable points, the next track event was the 3000m with Eloise Meakins and Clare Marsh each coming 3rd in their races to gain useful points for the team. Meanwhile in the field, on a difficult surface for jumping, Kathi Streatfield and Danielle Currie were competing in the Triple Jump. Both athletes who are in good form at the moment easily won their respective strings with Kathi jumping 11.87m to win the A string and Danielle Currie taking her second win of the day to secure the B string with a jump of 10.94m. This was shortly followed by two impressive wins on the track in the 100m Hurdles. Steph Gaynor won the A string with 15.2 and Hayley Kruse achieving her third victory of the day in the B string with 17.8secs.

Next up on the track was the 400m race and two of our up and coming U17 400m runners performed extremely well with both Steph Sattin and Emily Hatch achieving personal bests. Steph ran an impressive 59.8 dipping under 60 secs for the first time in her career to achieve third place in the A string race and Emily Hatch in only her second 400m race for the club won the B string in a very good 61.6 secs.

The lack of available middle distance runners was seen again in the 1500m race with Laura Whitehead being the only competitor. Laura ran well to achieve third place in the A string race with 5.12.3. The final individual track event was the 200m with Hayley Wills achieving another PB coming third in the A string with 25.5 secs and Hayley Kruse who had performed excellently for the team in her 5th event of the day coming 4th in the B string with 29.7.

The final field event was the javelin with both Peta Lundgren and Eloise Meakins securing wins for the team. Peta in her third throwing event of the day achieved her second win with 36.78m to win the A string and in form Eloise won the B string with a throw of 34.95m.

Finally the senior competition ended with the relays with Caulfield, Wills, Gaynor and Streatfield coming second in the 4 x 100m relay with 50.5 and Wills, Whitehead, Hatch and Sattin storming home in the 4 x 400m to win by 50 clear metres to win the 4 x 400 in a time of 4.03.9.

A much stronger junior U15 squad provided excellent support to the senior team. With top sprinter Jodie Williams being the only notable absentee the U15s performed extremely well to gain further valuable points to help to secure the win for the team. The first two field events were High Jump and Shot. In the High jump Gemma Armorgie cleared 1.50m to win the A string and Helena Page’s 1.15m jump was enough to claim second place in the B string. Talented thrower Sarah Miller won the A string shot with a putt of 9.28m and Melissa Hadley won the B string with a putt of 8.69m. This was shortly followed by the long jump where Melissa’s sister Natasha achieved a PB jumping 4.40m in the A string and Helena Page jumped 3.74m in the B string.

The track competition started with the 100m with up and coming sprints star Francis Slater coming second in the A string race with 13.0 and Isabella Cacciatore coming second in the B string with a new PB of 13.7.  In the 800m Ella Lloyd and Helena Page ran well with Ella coming second in the A string with 2.34.9 and Helena coming third in the B string with 2.45.0. At the same time as the 800m, the Javelin competition was taking place with the impressive Sarah Miller winning the A string competition with a throw of 25.97m and Gemma Armorgie achieving a PB to come second in the B string with a throw of 17.86m.

Gemma went straight from the javelin to the 75m Hurdles race coming third in the A string with 13.2 and Gemma was well supported by Shannon Proctor who came second in the B string with 16.8. The final field event was the Discus with Sarah Miller competing in her third event and achieved her second win of the day in the A string with a throw of 25.97m. In the B string Melissa Hadley threw 17.86m to gain second spot.

Back to the track for the 200m race where our two junior sprinters Francis Slater and Isabella Cacciatore ran well again with Francis coming second in the A string race with 26.9 and Isabella also coming second in the B string race with 27.8. This was followed by two excellent performances in the 1500m where Lizzie Bird won the A string and achieved a PB of 5.15.1 and Mary Gough won the B string race in a time of 5.23.5.

Finally in the relay, the squad of Proctor, Hadley, Cacciatore and Slater came third with a time of 56.3 secs.

Team managers Ian Burrows (Seniors) and Lisa Currie (Juniors) were delighted with the team’s performance on the day and said ‘provided that we have better availability for the remaining matches we feel that we can move up the table towards the top position where we have been for the past two seasons’.