The Senior women’s team enjoyed a big victory in their second Southern Women’s League match at Woking on Saturday 30th May amassing 114 points, some 44 points ahead of the second place team. This win included 24 first places out of the 31 events entered.

First places were achieved in both the 100 and 200 races with Frances Slater winning the A strings with a time of 12.7 in the 100 and another superb PB of 25.6 in the 200. In the B string races Emily Stevens won her 100 race in 13.2 secs and Laura Jones won the B string 200 race in 26.6 secs. Laura the went on to come second in the 400 with 60.6 and a strong finish from Steph Sattin saw her take the lead metres from the line to win the B string 400 in 60.2.

In the middle distance races, Laura Whitehead won the 1500 in a time of 5.01.8 and in the B string Clare Marsh was 3rd. Clare also ran the 800 coming 4th in that race. Over the longer 3000m Natasha Taylor was second in the A string with 11.11.3 and Javelin thrower Eloise Meakins gained valuable points coming second in the B string race.

Four more first places were achieved in the hurdles with Nat Farman winning the A string 100H in 16.2 secs and Hayley Kruse won the B string race. In the 400 hurdles the pairing of Emily Stevens and Rebecca Hore won their races in 67.4 secs and 68.4 secs respectively.

A full house of first places was achieved in the jumps with the highlight being Danielle Currie’s 11.08 in Triple Jump with her last jump of the competition. Danielle has been struggling with injury for quite a while and was delighted to return back to the form that she showed 2 years ago and has now achieved entry standard for English Schools in this event. Danielle easily won the A string and was supported by Rebecca Hore who won the B string with 9.50.

The pairing of Nat Farman and Hayley Kruse did really well and achieved 3 first places each. Having both won their hurdles races the girls won their Long Jump and High Jump competitions as well. Nat won the A string Long Jump with 5.01 and the B string High jump with 1.50. Hayley won the B string Long Jump with 4.68 and the A string High jump with 1.60.

More success came in the throws with 6 first places and 2 second places. First places were achieved in the Hammer by Eve Miller with a throw of 34.28 in the A string and Peta Lundgren won the B string with 18.18. This was the first of 3 events for Peta who went on to come second in the A string Discus with a throw of 28.84 and in her specialist Javelin event Peta easily won the a string competition with an impressive new Personal best throw of 44.36. Sarah Miller in only her first year as an U17 had 2 wins in the B string Shot with 9.23 and B string Discus with 25.35. Laura Jones came second in the A string shot with 10.03.

A very successful hot and sunny day ended with double success in the relays. The squad of Farman, Jones, Hore and Slater won the 4 x 100 race in 52.0 secs and the 4 x 400 squad of Sattin, Stevens, Hore and Jones came home 50 metres ahead of the second place team.

This victory should move the team up into the top 3 places in the league and if they can repeat this success in the remaining matches they should have a great chance of gaining promotion to Division 1.

Ian Burrows – Women’s Team Manager