Herts Phoenix womens team recorded their second successive win of the season in their home fixture at Stevenage on Saturday 28th June. In doing so, their points total enabled them to bridge the gap between themselves and the league leaders putting them in a strong position to challenge for the league title for the third year in succession.

The team has now competed against all the top teams and should be in a position to catch up further in the matches to come.

The match result was:

Herts Phoenix AC                     176 points
Guildford and Godalming          149 points
Brighton and Hove City AC       112 points
Crawley AC                                83 points

Current league standings with 2 matches to go are:

 

 

   

This victory was achieved with a total of 15 first places in the Senior and U17 events and 14 first places in the U15 events.

For the seniors, combined event athletes Natalie Farman and Hayley Kruse featured in a number of events and scored good points for the team. Natalie competed in 5 events with a win in her hurdles race, a second place in the A string Long Jump with a leap of 5.19m, third place in the Shot with 9.24m and second in the High Jump with 1.53m. Natalie was also part of the 4 x 100m relay squad who were second in that race. Hayley competed in 4 events, coming second in her 100m Hurdles race, winning her B string Long Jump with 4.71m, winning the B string Shot with 8.21m and coming third in the Hammer.



A double win was recorded in the 400m hurdles with Emma Kavanagh winning the A string race and Emily Stevens winning the B string race and in the 300m Hurdles Hannah Lloyd equalled her PB of 46.2s to win her race. Claire Humphries recorded a double win with 26.8s in the A string 200m and 12.3s in the 80M Hurdles. Claire also featured in the 4 x 100m relay. Katie Caulfield also had a busy day recording wins in the High Jump with 1.55m and a win in the B string 80m Hurdles with 12.6s. She came second in the A string 100m with 12.9s and also took part in the sprint relay.

Lottie Cullen doubled up in the short sprints winning the B string 100m with 13.1s and coming second in the B string 200m with 27.3s. She was also a member of the relay squad. The 400m was covered by the Silva sisters with Christina coming 4th in the A string with a time of 60.2s and sister Nikki won the B string in a time of 59.9s. In the 800m Laura Whitehead came 3rd in the A string with 2.35.8s and Chloe Anne Currie came third in the B string. Chloe Anne went on to be the only competitor in the Triple Jump and came second in the A string with a jump of 9.38m. Clare Marsh came 4th in the 1500m and in the 3000m Natasha Taylor was second in the A string with a time of 11.20.00s and Eloise Meakins was second in the B string in a time of 13.45.00s. Eloise went on to win the A string Javelin with a throw of 35.97m and was joined in that event by Katie Grehan who won the B string with a throw of 35.18m.

In the other throwing events, Eve Miller was 4th in the A string Discus and Jenny Hutchings picked up 2nd place in the B string. In the Hammer, Hayley Kruse was 3rd in the A string and Eve Miller was 4th in the B string.

The strong junior U15 squad performed extremely well achieving 14 first places, 6 second places and 1 third place and acquired a lot of points for the team. There were 3 personal best performances amongst those results. Sarah Miller followed her call up to the English schools champs for Discus with a new PB of 10.00m in the Shot to win that event. She also won the A string Discus with 25.30m and was second in the javelin with 21.26m. Also successful in the throws was Melissa Hadley who had 3 wins in the B string. Melissa achieved 7.60m in the Shot, 15.52m in the Discus and 15.86m in the Javelin. Melissa’s sister Natasha was also successful and achieved 3 wins in 75m Hurdles, Long Jump and High jump. Bearing in mind the Hadley twins are currently only U13, there performances augur well for the future. Natasha achieved two personal bests amongst her 3 wins with 1.40m in High Jump and 12.8s in 75m Hurdles, running for the first time over this height and distance.

In the sprints, another English Schools athlete from the junior squad, Francis Slater ran well to win both the 100m with 13.2s and the 200m with 26.8s. Francis was supported well in the B string by Abbie Griffiths who also recorded two wins. Abbie achieved 13.7s in the 100m and 27.9s in the 200m.

Other results were, second places for Ella Lloyd and Shannon Proctor in the 800m with Ella recording a time of 2.31.3s and Shannon a new PB of 2.36.6s. Second places were also achieved in the 1500m with Lizzie Bird in the A string with a time of 5.10.00s and Mary Gough in the B string recorded a time of 5.25.4s

Gemma Armorgie won the A string High Jump by clearing a height of 1.53m and came 3rd in her Hurdles race.

Sacha Dowling won her Long Jump with a leap of 4.63m.

Finally, the U15 relay squad of Griffiths, Hadley, Armorgie and Slater were second in their race rounding off an excellent afternoon for the juniors.

Ian Burrows, Team Manager