A slightly depleted womens team had an early start on Saturday 27th June as they made the long journey down to Worthing to compete in the 3rd Southern Womens match.  With a team of just 10 athletes they done outstandingly to battle their way to a second place missing out on the win by only 3 points.

The day got off to a good start with an excellent personal best by Eve Miller of 40.07m in the hammer to take second place, and B string Hayley Kruse taking a well deserved second place with 18.82. Next up a clean sweep in the 400hurdles for the duo of Laura Jones and Becca Hore both winning in 65 and 69.6 respectively.

The 100m saw easy wins again for Frances Slater in 12.8 and Hannah Lloyd in 13.5.  The 800m gained good points with Charlotte Davis taking second in the A string with 2.31.2 and Emma Kavanagh 1st in the B with 2.31.9.

The shot gave two second places with Jones throwing 9.90m in the A, and Miller 8.52 in the B.

Long jump was a complete farce with a delay of over 45minutes due to the men over running.  Nat Farman however pulled out a jump of 5.28 to equal her p.b.and win the A string after returning from winning the 100m hurdles A string in 16.3.  Kavanagh won the B string long jump with 4.52 and Hayley Kruse the B string hurdles with 16.1.

With a lack of discus experience in the team, Jones and Kavanagh stepped up to gain points for the team.  Laura throwing a respectable 26.11m and Emma a not so respectable 15.07 to take second in both strings.

The 400ms saw the Farman Kruse combo again putting the competition to shame with wins in both strings with times of 65.3 and 68.4 respectively.

The Javelin saw again Jonesy holding her own amongst the throwers with a superb 35.64m throw to take 2nd with Kavanagh throwing 17.88 in between high jumps to take 2nd.

High jump saw Kruse maintain her consistency throughout the season with 1.55m for second in the A (after running and winning the 400m I might add) and Kavanagh 2nd in the B with 1.45.

200s saw again easy wins for Frances Slater in 26.7 in the A and Becca Hore 27.8 in the B.

Clare Marsh took on the 3000m in tough conditions (gales force winds and sweltering heat) to take 4th in the A string in 18.19.3 and then followed it with a 3rd in the 1500m in the B string in a time of 8.42.9.

Charlotte Davies working well to take 3rd in the A string with 5.14.

The triple jump saw Farman and Hore in action again taking 1st in the A string with 10.50 and 2nd in the B with 9.32 respectively.

At this point the team has spent most of the day running round like headless chickens in an attempt to cover events, and their hard work has paid off …..we were lying is second to the home team Worthing and believed some good performances in the relays could get us the win.  

First up the 4 x 100m, with the team of Farman, Kruse, Jones and Slater, with some decidedly dodgy take over’s made up for by excellent sprinting the baton was brought home in first place in 53.6.

The 4x400m the team of Kavanagh, Hore, Lloyd and Jones mistakenly expected this to be a walk in the park, however the home team Worthing shipped in a good 400m runner who had been running at the nationals at Bedford earlier in the day (we only found this out after the race had started and she sprinted off to gain a massive lead) however herts phoenix women are not ones to give up chased and maintained the lead Worthing had established reducing it slightly with a good 3rd leg from Lloyd.  Jonesy took the baton is second, at least 30m down, with 200m left she went into 5th gear and the race really started, gradually the gap closed, with about 5m left Jonesy got in front, and took the win in 4.15, with Worthing recording 4.15.1.

Unfortunately after the valiant effort we still finished 3 points behind Worthing. Lessons to be learned from this match is that we need pole vaulters!! ….and maybe a few more athletes.  

Well done to all the team who turned out, and thanks to our officials Richard Bloom and Stuart Broadhead, and those who turned out to support.

Emma Kavanagh
Acting team manager for the day