seniors open track campaign strongly

Morpeth Harriers Senior Men and Women began their 2024 Domestic Track and Field campaign in enterprising fashion, when finishing a close third behind hosts Darlington, and a combined team of Blaydon/Elswick Harriers, in their opening NESDL Division 1 fixture, held at Shildon on Saturday 20 April.
Team Managers George Patterson and Mark Banks (Men), and Rachelle Falloon (Women), managed to recruit 19 members to turn out on the day, with nine men, and ten women contributing towards the club’s tally.
In her very first track appearance for Morpeth, Poppy Buck proved to be a star performer, winning both the Women’s 800m in 2m25.40s, and later going on to win the 1500m in 5m32.20s.
Team Manager Falloon provided excellent support to Buck in the B race of the 800m, finishing second in 2m35.30s.
However, Falloon proved to be a star herself in the 2000m Steeplechase, which she very convincingly won in 8m13.03s, and also finished second in the earlier run 3000m in 10m51.30s.
There were some good points scores from the Women’s sprint events.
In the 100m, Mia Belton finished third in the A Race in 13.0s, and Freya Caygill in her first Senior outing won the B race in 13.1s.
Caygill also finished third in the A Race of the 200m in 26.87s, and Nisha Desai finished second in the B Race in 27.4s
Additional performances for Morpeth in the 100m and 200m respectively, came from Ellie Wickens 14.0s, and Mia Belton 27.44s.
In the 400m and 400m Hurdles, Kay Errington finished fourth and third respectively in 75.9s and 78.3s.
Morpeth finished second in both the 4 x 100m Relay and 4 x 400m Relay in 54.11s, and 4m46.79s.
In the Field Events, the best Morpeth result came from Claire Reid in the Hammer, where she had a comfortable victory with a best of 25.34m.
Reid also finished second in the Discus with a best of 28.69m.
She also finished fifth in the Javelin B String (16.80m), backing up Nisha Desai’s A String performance of 19.05m, which saw her finish fifth.
Olivia Gent finished third in the Triple Jump with a best of 9.23m, and fifth in the Long Jump with 3.94m.
Although there were no A String wins on the day amongst the Men’s performances, there were still some good results achieved, with a sterling amount of effort being made by the nine athletes who turned out for Morpeth.
One of the best of these, came in the 800m, where Peter Smallcombe finished second in the A Race in 2m02.20s, and Joe Dixon in his first Senior League outing, took the B Race in 2m07.70s.
Josh Fiddaman, making his Morpeth track debut following his transfer from Blyth, finished second in the A Race of the 1500m in 3m57.11s, and Ethan Phillips finished second in the B Race in 4m20.73s.
In his first appearance for some time in the Blue and White Vest of Morpeth, Ian Harding turned out to finish third in the 3000m, posting a finishing time of 9m17.70s.
Harding also ran the B race of the 400m, finishing third in 64.9s, supporting Anthony Liddle’s excellent second in the A Race, where he posted a time of 57.97s, just missing out on actual victory by a mere fraction to Wallsend/Blyth’s Nigel Gorvett.
Morpeth sprinters Sean O’Hara and Phil Pitt were also well to the fore in the action in the 100m and 200m events.
O’Hara finished third in the A Race of the 100m in 11.9s, and also third in the 200m in 23.7s.
Pitt was second in the B Race of the 100m in 12.2s, and also second in the B Race of the 200m in 25.2s.
Another strong Morpeth performance in the 200m was from Anthony Liddle, who posted a time of 26.2s.
Morpeth finished second in both of the Men’s Relays, posting times of 49.64s in the 4 x100m, and 3m58.63s in the 4 x 400m.
The best result in the Men’s Field events was without doubt in the Long Jump where Veteran athlete Jason Dawson finished second in the A String, producing a best of 4.39m, and Anthony Liddle finished second of the B String with 4.1m.
Dawson was indeed a workhorse in the Morpeth Field events, where he competed in three additional events.
He was fourth in the Triple Jump (8.83m), fifth in the Javelin (22.46m), and third in the B String High Jump (1.40m), supporting again Anthony Liddle, who was fifth in the A String, by clearing 1.45m.
Morpeth sprinters Sean O’Hara and Phil Pitt teamed up in the Shot Putt, with O’Hara finishing fourth in the A String (8.49m), and Pitt finishing second in the B String with 8.24m, all vital point scoring towards the final result.
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MATCH RESULT
1st Darlington Harriers 467pts, 2nd Blaydon/Elswick 321pts, 3rd Morpeth Harriers 318pts, 4th Wallsend/Blyth 317pts, 5th Gateshead Harriers 306pts, 6th New Marske Harriers 247pts.