Midland Senior League 2 - 11/7/2021

17 July 2021

The Prince of Wales stadium played host to the 2nd senior league of the season. A home fixture is always a good opportunity for our athletes and many took the opportunity to run, jump or throw a PB.

In the sprint events Sam Griffiths was on fire, winning both the 100m and 200m A race with a SB of 12.3 in the 100m and a solid 25.8 in the 200m. Florence Ikpeme made it double wins in the 100m winning the B race in 12.9. While Molly Gould ran a brilliant PB by around 6 seconds to take 3rd in the 200m B race in 28.6. Tom Pritchard was also completing a sprint double. Pritchard finished 3rd in the Men’s A 100m in 11.4 and 2nd in the A 200m in 23.1. Harry Boswell and Oliver Spencer competed in the B 200m and 100m respectively, Boswell finished 4th in 24.4 and Spencer was 2nd in 11.5. Three Harriers competed in the 100m as a guest with Tom Samuel running 11.5, long jump specialist Alfie Wood a PB of 11.7 and Harry Boswell a SB of 12.0. In the 400m Rebecca Hoadley dipped under 60 seconds for the 2nd time running 59.7 to take 2nd in the A race. Jorja Webb keeps getting quicker and impressed with a B race victory in a PB of 61.4. William Exell made his 400m debut in the men’s A race finishing 4th in 58.0 and Matt Evans ran a PB of 69.0 for 4th in the B race. Ikpeme returned for the 100m hurdles winning in 14.9, and 2 seconds clear of 2nd place. 

In the distance events there was a 3rd place finish for Harrison Miles in the A 800m with a SB of 2:15.5 and a 3rd place finish for Bexley Turbard in the B race with a PB of 2:16.2. Miles then returned to take on the 1500m, where he ran well to finish 4th in the A race in 4:41.4. Also finishing 4th was Roger Mullins who ran 4:45.6 in the B event. Jo Wilkie competed in the 1500m for the first time since 2015 and ran well to come 3rd in 5:44.9. The senior league gave athletes a rare opportunity to compete over 5000m and our athletes took full advantage of this. U17 Isaac Henderson impressed, finishing 1st by 37 seconds and dipping under 16minutes for the first time in a brilliant 15:59.0. Martin Foster also ran a PB beating his previous best by 35 seconds to cross the line in 17:32.4. Competing as a guest Dan Minors ran a SB of 17:25.4. Ella Burfitt ran a huge 3000m PB at the previous senior league and repeated the feat in the 5000m this time around. Burfitt was a clear 60 seconds ahead of her nearest rival finishing an easy 1st in a  huge 2 minute and 12 seconds PB of 18:25.9. Also setting a PB was Petra Vymetalova who ran 20:43.9 for 2nd in the B race. Adding to his 400m PB, Matthew Evans ran a SB of 8:38.6 in the 2000m steeplechase.

There were two Harrier wins in the relays with our men’s 4x100m team winning in 45.2 and our women’s 4x400m team winning in 4:22.0. Our women’s 4x100m team finished 3rd in a close race with a time of 52.3. The men’s 4x400m team was also 3rd.

It has been great to see Annabel Moloney back competing this year and even better to see her back winning. Moloney took the A shot put with a SB of 11.83. Lily Carpenter competed well to win the B event with a best of 9.59. In the men’s shot put Mike Curneen and Elliot Prince were both 5th in the A and B string respectively with throws of 8.39 and 5.53. Our javelin throwers have been in brilliant form this year and so it was brilliant to see an A and B string victory in the men’s event through Sam Northen and Chris Picken. Northern threw 47.15 and Picken 43.81, both just below their best. Fresh from the English Schools Championships the day before, Mimi Davis took 2nd in the women’s A javelin with a new PB of 33.10. Linsey Hutchins was 2nd in the B event with 20.64.  In the hammer throw Ruth Bird threw 32.87 for 4th and Annabel Moloney 29.69 for 4th and 1st in the A and B string. Curneen and Prince also competed in the Hammer throwing 15.58 and 12.19 for 4th and 3rd in the A and B string respectively. 

Demonstrating our strength in depth in the throwing events we had numerous athletes competing as a guest. Bird competed as a guest in the shot put, throwing 8.93 and the javelin, throwing 23.07. Hutchins guested in the shot put, throwing 5.89, and the hammer where she threw a SB of 21.51.

Last but not least the jump events. It was brilliant to see double PBs in the men’s triple jump with William Andrews-Flint coming 3rd in the A event with 11.63 and Billy Buxton jumping 11.12 for 3rd in the B competition. Also fresh from the English Schools Championships was Alfie Wood. Wood jumped a PB to finish 4th at the Championships and just 24 hours later progressed even further with another PB of 6.93 to finish 2nd in the A event. In the B long jump Tom Samuel jumped a SB of 5.30. In the women’s long jump Gemma Veal jumped 4.44 for 4th in the A event and Rosie Wood jumped 3.73 for 4th in the B event. Buxton was our sole competitor in the high jump, he jumped well clearing a SB of 1.5.