 The Mens 100mts at Darlington on Saturday 4th August (Photo courtesy of Helen King) Morpeth Harriers Senior Men and Women’s Track and Field squad completed their 2018 Northern Athletics Division 2E campaign, by finishing fourth in their final round match, held at Darlington’s Eastbourne Sports Complex on Saturday 4th August 2018. Team Manager’s David Swinburne (Men), and Vina Desai (Women) can be justifiably pleased with their respective squads combined season long efforts, which saw them finish a very respectable third overall of six teams, behind divisional champions Gateshead Harriers, who now face the opportunity of going to a playoff match at Doncaster later this month, that may see them find a place in Division 1 next season. Meanwhile Morpeth Harriers, along with second placed Wallsend/Blyth and fourth place Middlesbrough AC face life again in 2019 in Division 2E, whilst Tynedale and Richmond and Zetland, who were hosts on Saturday, face life in the lower Division 3 next year.  Andrew Lawrence in the 5000mts (Photo courtesy of Helen King) Distance specialists Kieran Hedley and Andrew Lawrence provided the club with their two track victories. Hedley won the 1500m A race in 4m05.9s, and Taylor Glover turned things into a superb double win, by taking the B race in 4m10.2s. Lawrence won the 5000m in 16m53.6s, and Mark Snowball finished an excellent second in the B race in 18m06.3s. In terms of effort on behalf of his club, Snowball was an example to all, as he took part in a total of five events, plus the 4 x 400m Relay. Additionally, to the 5000m, he also finished second in the 3000m Steeplechase (10m36.3s), fourth in the 400m Hurdles (73.5s), sixth in the Long Jump (4.21m), and Triple Jump (8.66s), and contributed greatly to his clubs 4 x 400m squad who finished third in 4m15.6s, with additional support coming from Tom Innes, Sean O’Hara, and Andrew Lawrence.  Alistair Douglass in the 400mts (Photo courtesy of Helen King) The 400m and 800m events were covered well for Morpeth by Alistair Douglass and Tom Innes. In the 400m A Race, Douglass produced a new personal best time of 52.4s, when only losing out marginally to Gateshead sprint specialist Martin Ferguson in a head to head finish all the way to the finish line. Meanwhile Innes took on the rigours of the one lap event for the very first time and did extremely well by finishing as second B athlete in 57.9s. In the 800m, Douglass finished third to Tynedale’s English Schools Champion Daniel Joyce, posting a finishing time of 1m57.5s. The hotly contested B race saw Innes finish fourth in 2m06.3s, a new personal best for the talented Under 20 athlete. 100m and 200m duties were shared between Phil Pitt, Sean O’Hara and David Storey. Pitt finished third in the 100m A race in 11.7s, and O’Hara likewise in the 200m A race, posting a time of 24.4s. Meanwhile Storey secured more valuable team points by finishing second in the B races of the 100m and 200m, posting respective clocking’s of 11.6s and 24.4s. Morpeth’s best Men’s Field Event performance of the day, came in the Javelin, where Hayden Richards threw a massive 48.21m, only just losing out by a mere 68cm for victory to Middlesbrough’s Steven Birse. Richards also provided Morpeth A string support in the Hammer, throwing 30.82m for fifth place. Steven Appleby took part in no fewer than four throws events on the day for Morpeth. His best performance came in the A string Discus, where his best throw of 30.64m gave him fifth place. Track specialist Alistair Douglass gave good B string support by finishing fifth, by producing a personal best of 20.11m Meanwhile Appleby finished third in the B string Hammer (22.34m), fifth in the B string Javelin (17.32m), and fifth in the B string Shot Putt (7.90m), giving support to Phil Pitt’s A string effort of 8.30m, which saw him finish sixth. On to the Women’s events, where a truly solid contribution to the clubs’ result was made. Claire Reid was the only Morpeth Women’s winner on the day, taking the Discus A event, with an excellent 32.07m, which proved to be just over three metres better than her closest rival Kate Carmichael of Middlesbrough. Morpeth also scored well in the B string of the Discus, with Kirsty Lang managing a new personal best of 20.77m for second place. It was suggested that Lang had been taking a few tips from younger brother Ruaridh, who unfortunately was unavailable to compete on the day for the Morpeth Men’s squad. Meanwhile Reid was definitely Morpeth’s most industrious Field Eventer on the day, with her next best result coming in the Hammer, where she finished a good second behind Gateshead’s Leah Weatheritt, with a best throw of 32.00m. Reid also threw 17.18m in the B string Javelin to finish second, only losing out for a win by 76cm, backing up Charlotte Barnsley’s fourth in the A string, making her Northern League debut special by posting a new personal best of 20.27m. A truly excellent days work was rounded off nicely by Reid, when she finished second in the A string Shot Putt, by producing an on the day best of 9.9m. Lynsey Cunningham gave excellent B string support to Reid, and he club, when she finished second with her on the day best of 6.42m.  Kayleigh Wenn in the Triple Jump (Photo courtesy of Helen King) On to the Women’s Jump events, where Morpeth’s best result came in the Long Jump,
where talented Under 17 athlete Kayleigh Wenn finished third in the A string with 4.01m, and Lauren Smith took the B string with 3.48m. Wenn also finished sixth in the A string Triple Jump with 8.44m, and Holly Peck was third in the B string with a best jump of 8.14m. Kirsty Lang finished fourth in the High Jump, by clearing a best of 1.35m. On to the Women’s track events, where although there were no on the day winners, there were nevertheless some excellent efforts, produced by a mixture of young and older talents. Under 17 athlete Holly Peck made valuable contribution to he clubs haul, when she finished third in both the 400m and 800m A string events, posting respective times of 67.1s and 2m27.5s. Backing Holly up well in the B string events were Veteran athletes Helen King and Lindsay Turnbull, who finished third and second respectively, with times of 71.9s and 2m49.5s. For Turnbull it was her first 800m event as a Senior. King and Turnbull teamed up for the first time for both of them in the 1500m. In the A Race King finished third in 5m32.5s and Turnbull was second in the B race in 5m57.1s. Two Morpeth personal bests were achieved in the 100m, where Lauren Smith finished third in the A race in 13.2s and Kayleigh Wenn got fourth in the B race in 15.1s. In the 200m, Smith finished fourth in the A race in 27.7s, and Lynsey Cunningham was third in the B race in 30.5s. Kirsty Lang finished second in the 400m Hurdles in 81.0s. Peck, King, Lang and Smith combined well to finish second in the Women’s 4 x 400m event in 4m45.0s. MATCH RESULT (Subject to further scrutiny) 1st Wallsend/Blyth 441pts, 2nd Gateshead Harriers 418pts, 3rd Middlesbrough AC 363pts, 4th Morpeth Harriers 349pts, 5th Richmond & Zetland 298pts, 6th Tynedale Harriers 281pts. FINAL LEAGUE STANDINGS (Subject to further scrutiny) (Total Match points in brackets) 1st Gateshead Harriers 21pts (1,534), 2nd Wallsend/Blyth 17pts (1,417),3rd Morpeth Harriers 16 (1,363), 4th Middlesbrough AC 13pts (1,271), 5th Tynedale 12pts (1,208), 6th Richmond & Zetland 5pts (1,006). Comments are closed.
|
Archives
April 2025
|
