Herts Phoenix senior women started their National league division 3 campaign this Sunday 8th June at Stevenage against tough opposition from five other top Southern clubs and two clubs from the North of England. A full set of results is now available via the "Results" tab then "Track & Field" on the left of this page.

The standard of competition was very high and with quite a few athletes missing due to injury, the team could only finish 7th out of 8 on the day.

If the team is to survive in division 3 we need to put out full and strong teams for the remaining two fixtures when the team travels to Wakefield in July and Wigan in August. Nevertheless, the athletes who were present on the day battled hard for the team and there were some fine individual performances.

The match started with 3 field events – Hammer, Long Jump and Pole Vault. In the hammer Danielle Currie, who was unable to compete in her normal Triple Jump event due to injury, threw 16.79m. In the Long Jump the pairing of Laura Jones and Natalie Farman saw Laura finish 6th in the A string with 5.23m and Natalie finish 6th in the B string with 5.07m. In the Pole Vault, Niki Andrews from Stevenage and North Herts AC, competing as a Higher claim athlete for Herts Phoenix, cleared 2.30m to finish 6th.

An hour later, the track events started with good points achieved by Christina Silva and Emily Stevens in the 400m Hurdles. Christina won the A string race with a time of 63.0 and Emily came second in the B string race in a time of 70.5. Emily went on to come 6th in the 400m shortly afterwards.  In the 800m Nikki Silva came 6th in the A string race and Hayley Wills won the B string race with a new PB of 2.10.9.

Next were the High Jump competition and the 100m races. In the High Jump, both athletes Natalie Farman and Niki Andrews cleared 1.45m to come 5th and 4th respectively. The 100m competition was packed with a number of very talented sprinters and very tough opposition for Laura Wake and Kathi Streatfield. Laura came 6th in the A string race with a time of 12.7 and Kathi was 7th in the B string race with a time of 13.2. Shortly afterwards in the Discus, Peta Lundgren and Christina Silva came 8th in their strings.

The hot conditions made it particularly difficult for athletes in the 3000m and 1500m and Herts Phoenix had only one athlete Natasha Taylor to cover these events. Natasha ran well in the heat to come 6th in the 3000m with a time of 11.30.2 and came 5th in the 1500 with a time of 5.13.1. Good points were secured in the 100m sprint hurdles with Stephanie Gaynor taking 3rd place in the A string race with a PB of 14.4 secs and Laura Jones won the B string race in a time of 15.3secs. Laura then showed her versatility and strength as a heptathlete by rushing off to compete in the Shot and finished 3rd in the B string with a put of 9.64m. Laura also went on to compete in both the 4 x 100m relay and the 4 x 400m relay later in the afternoon. Competing in the A string shot was Peta Lundgren who came 7th with 9.72m.

In a long and very competitive Triple Jump, Kathi Streatfield carrying a foot injury, jumped well to come fourth in the A string with 11.98m and Christina Silva stepped in late to cover for the injured Danielle Currie to come 6th in the B string with a jump of 9.56m.

The two final individual events were the Javelin in the field and the 200m on the track. In the 200m, Laura Wake and Hayley Wills ran well against some very strong sprinters. Laura came 5th in the A string with a time of 25.3 and Hayley secured good points finishing second in the B string race with a time of 26.0.

In the Javelin competition, Peta Lundgren who is now beginning to return to her top form competed in her third and strongest of the throwing events and came third with a throw of 41.16m.

Finally, the afternoon finished with two very exciting relay races. In the 4 x 100m relay, the squad of Gaynor, Wills, Jones and Wake came 4th in a very creditable time of 49.6 and in the 4 x 400m the squad of Silva, Silva, Jones and Wills taking 2nd place in the race with a time of 3.55.9

Ian Burrows – Team Manager