The final standings were :

1    Herts Phoenix AC                        183
2    Leeds City AC                             176
3    Reading AC                                 172
4    Coventry Godiva AC                   163
5    Channel Islands                           134
6    Gateshead Harriers                     134
7    Herne Hill Harriers                        126
8    Aldershot, Farnham and District    90

The match started in the field with the Long Jump, Hammer and Pole Vault and featured two Stevenage and North Herts athletes who were competing for Herts Phoenix as higher claim athletes in this league. In the Pole Vault, Nikki Andrews came joint first clearing 2.10m and went on later to compete in the 2000m Steeplechase and came 6th to get more points for the team. The other Stevenage and North Herts athlete was Loren Scanes competing in the Hammer with Eve Miller. Both women threw well with Loren achieving a personal best with her last throw of the competition to come third in the A string with 38.02m and Eve Miller won the B string with 37.08m. In the long jump, Nat Farman jumped 5.17m to gain a third spot and in the B string Laura Wake jumped 4.93m to win the B string competition.

The track started with the 400m Hurdles race where Herts Phoenix women secured first and second places. Laura Jones achieved a new PB of 63.4 to easily win the A string race and Emily Stevens came second in the B string race with a time of 70.6. Next up was the 800m where Emma Kavanagh just returning from injury ran in an event that she is not accustomed to, but ran well to achieve a time of 2mins 26.80 to come 7th in her race. This was shortly followed by the 100 m sprint where Emily Stevens came 6th in the A string in a time of 13.0 and Rebecca Hore came 5th in the B string with 13.4. Meanwhile in the High jump, good points were achieved by Nat Farman and Hayley Kruse. Nat cleared 1.60m to come third in the A string and Hayley won the B string competition by clearing a height of 1.55m.

Good results followed in the 400m where Laura Wake achieved a massive personal best time of 55.3 to impressively win the A string and Steph Sattin achieved a seasons best of 59.9 to come 4th in the B string race. Over in the Discus Peta Lundgren threw 27.10m to come 6th in the A string and Hammer thrower Loren Scanes came 4th in the B string with 22.39m. In the Triple jump, Kathi Streatfield showed some return to form by coming second in the A string with 11.59m and Danielle Currie had to withdraw from the competition after 2 jumps with an injured foot but still did enough to win the B string competition.

Next in the 100m Hurdles race, Nat Farman ran well to dip under 16 secs to come 4th in the a string with 15.9 and Hayley Kruse came second in the B string race with 16.60. Natasha Taylor and Julie Simmons worked really hard for the team by doing the tough double of 3000m and 1500m. Natasha ran a really good 3000m race achieving a new personal best time of 10.49.20 coming 7th in the A string and Julie was 5th in the B string in a time of 12.20.30. In the 1500m, Natasha was 7th in a time of 5.02.0 and Julie was 6th in a time of 5.53.50.

The shot competition saw Peta Lundgren 5th in the A string with 10.25m and in the B string, Laura Jones was 5th. Laura went straight to the shot from her 200m race where she came 7th with 26.6 and in the B string Emma Kavanagh was 8th in a time of 27.90.

At this point in the afternoon, the match was extremely tight with any one of 3 teams – Herts Phoenix, Reading and Leeds in a position to win the match. So the last 3 events of Javelin and both relays were crucial and in great style the Herts Phoenix women achieved a first and 3 second places to secure their victory.

In the Javelin, Peta Lundgren was second with a throw of 39.61m and Katie Grehan won the B string with a throw of 31.91m. Two second places in the relays followed with the squad of Stevens, Wake, Hore & Jones in the 4 x 100m and the squad of Jones, Sattin, Hore and Wake running in the 4 x 400m.

The team are now in a great position to gain promotion back into Division 3 where they were relegated from last season but this will very much depend on how many athletes can make themselves available for the remaining fixtures in July in Coventry and in Gateshead in August.

Ian Burrows – Womens Team Manager