strong performances as neydl campaign draws to a close

Twenty-two young athletes competed in Morpeth Harriers final match of the 2024 season of the NEYDL Division 2 campaign, held at Shildon on Sunday 21 July, where the club acted as hosts for the day.
Nine male and 13 female members of the club took part, and Morpeth rounded off their season by finishing sixth out of eight competing teams on the day, which also made them sixth overall cumulatively.
Under 17 sprinter Harrison Scott rounded off a good season, which saw him make his Senior debut the previous week, by turning the tables on his New Marske rival Finley McKitterick in the 200m, which he won by a hairsbreadth after posting the same time of 22.85s, which proved to be a new personal best.
Earlier in the day, he had finished second to McKitterick in the 100m, where he had posted 11.50s, which was just outside his best figures.
Also competing in the 100m for Morpeth were Conner Phillips, Will Hodgson, and Steven Craske.
Phillips posted a time of 11.90s, which made him second in the B race, and was a new personal best.
Hodgson’s and Craske’s times were 12.2s and 13.2s, respectively.
In the Under 17 Men’s 800m, Morpeth’s Oliver Tomlinson won in a season’s best of 2m09.45s.
Tomlinson also produced a new personal best of 22.01m when finishing second in the Under 17 Men’s Discus.
He also went on to record a personal best of 20.37m when winning the Javelin.
Under 17 Woman specialist thrower Alexandria Hodgson produced her third best performance of the year so far, when winning the Hammer with a best of 46.98m.
Morpeth’s Amelia Hamlin, in only her second outing of the season, finished third in the Under 17 Women’s 300m in a time of 44.75s.
Molly Roche of Morpeth was second in the B race in 50.62s.
Morpeth only had two Under 15 Boys on the day competing.
Thomas Roche did the lions share of the work here, finishing third in the 200m in 28.2s, second in the B race of the 1500m (5m28.79s),
And third in the 300m (46.96s), which was a new personal best.
Harry Douglass of Morpeth finished fourth in the A race of the Under 15 Boys 1500m in 4m50.47s.
Morpeth Harriers had five athletes to call upon for their Under 15 Girls events.
Sophie Pledger was the star performer here, with two A race wins to her credit.
She won the 100m in 13.20s, which was a new non wind assisted personal best, and also later won the 300m in 43.55s, which was only a fraction outside her personal best.
Good B race support for Morpeth in these events came respectively from Sofia Gibson in the 100m (13.79s), for second place, and Mya Young (47.87s), also just a fraction adrift of her personal best.
Mya also finished fifth in the A race of the 200m in 29.54s, a new personal best here, being well backed up in the B race by Faye Heatley, who finished third in 31.27s, also a new personal best.
Heatley also produced new figures in the 800m B race of 2m38.40s, where she finished second, giving good backing to Emma Tomlinson’s A race performance, where she also finished second in 2m32.30s, also just a mere fraction adrift of her personal best.
Another performance of note in the Under 15 Girls events, was the excellent Long Jump win by Sofia Gibson, with a performance of 4.41m.
In the Under 13 Girls events, Lucy Raper had wins in the Discus (21.61m), and Shot Putt (6.96m), the Discus performance being a new personal best.
On the track, Heidi Wilkinson won the 1500m in 5m32.67s, which was three seconds adrift of her personal best.
Zoe Tomlinson finished second in the 800m in 2m44.86s, which was a new personal best, and she also finished second in the Javelin with 12.10m, another personal best, being well backed up in the B string by Lucy Raper, who won with a best of 11.25m, also a personal best performance.
Morpeth could only call upon the services of one Under 13 Boy, and he paid rich dividends.
Making his club debut, Aaron Bacon rewarded his new colleagues well by comfortably winning the Javelin with a best throw of 28.70m.
The club would want to thank all of those athletes who took part in the four matches throughout the season, and all club officials and helpers who attended the fixtures, we could not have managed without your continued support.

MATCH RESULT
1st Blyth/Alnwick 720pts, 2nd Middlesbrough/Houghton/Derwentside 523pts, 3rd Chester Le Street/Durham City 504pts, 4th New Marske 446pts, 5th Blaydon/Wallsend/Gosforth 391pts, 6th Morpeth Harriers 385pts, 7th Tynedale/Prudhoe 294pts, 8th Heaton/Tyne Bridge 109pts.nd
FINAL LEAGUE RESULT (Total Match Points in brackets)
1st Middlesbrough/Houghton/Derwentside 29pts (2393), 2nd Blyth/Alnwick 28pts (2487.5), 3rd Chester Le Street/Durham City 27pts (2354), 4th New Marske 19pts (1861.5), 5th Blaydon/Wallsend/Gosforth 16pts (1688), 6th Morpeth Harriers 12pts (1567), 7th Heaton/Tyne Bridge 7pts (1116), 8th Tynedale/Prudhoe 6pts (1146).