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Youngsters push their way into Playoffs
Team manager Dave HARMES set his team of Scunthorpe and District Athletics club youngsters the target of making the playoffs in the National Junior league at the beginning of the season. After recording a surprise victory in the third meeting at Doncaster beating the home team on their own track he knew a top two finish in the final match at Quibell Park would achieve that target.
However things appeared to be going off track during the week with a number of female athletes having to pull out of the team due to injury, work and holidays. But those that were left tried to fill in the gaps, In particular both Sheridan McWilliams and Bethan HAMMOND had a busy and tiring day with the pair contesting both the 800m and 1500m before Sheridan went onto run the 3,000m before filling in the Long Jump. Whilst Bethan showed her versatility winning the 400m Hurdles and coming second in the 100 m hurdles, before summoning up the final bit of her energy to run a leg of the 4x400m relay.
There was a double win for Georgina OCONNOR in the 400m and Long Jump before younger sister Steph O’CONNOR showed her potential coming third in the 100m and then winning the 200m. This was a remarkable performance for a 15 year old athlete competing in an under 20 league and therefore giving up to 4 years away to her older competitors.
Unlike the girls the boys were out in force with 15 athletes competing compared to the girls 7. As has been the theme through a lot of this years league the club has relied on a very strong u17 men’s section to pick up points and the lads were not to disappoint. Leading the way was Elliott STONES in the middle distance events. Elliott has decided to concentrate on his athletics this year instead of football and as a result his times are starting to come crashing down. Elliott started the day by coming second in the 800m in his second fastest time of the year, which has seen him knock 7 seconds off his best. He then stepped up to the 1500m start time intent of gaining revenge on the Boston athlete who had beaten him earlier and he did exactly that with a gun to tape performance which saw him run away from his competitors to win by over 50m. Another performance to take note of was Tom BRIGGS who competed in the Triple Jump he added over 50cm to his best when he recorded 12.44m. Tom who is in his first year of competing will now have the target of qualifying for next year’s English schools finals.
The most welcome sight of the meeting was the return of Lewis STONES. Lewis had missed most of the winter and all of the track season so far after having to have an operation on his shoulder which he injured 2 years ago in a school rugby match and had suffered with his shoulder regularly dislocating ever since. So when Lewis stepped on the track for his first run over 800m after only several weeks training nobody including him knew how he would perform. But his talent shone through the lack of training when he won the B race and was only 7 seconds off his best ever time. Lewis will now concentrate on getting fully fit for the start of the cross country season.
The day was to see a see-saw battle between Scunthorpe and Doncaster, who were after revenge for the last defeat. It was to be a close call with Doncaster winning by just 9 points, but the result sealed both clubs places in the play off finals for promotion to the Northern Premier league to be held on Sunday 28th August at Wigan’s Robin Park Stadium. With the full results waiting to be confirmed Scunthorpe team are likely to face Doncaster. Liverpool Harries. Blackburn Harries, Leeds city and Middlesbrough.
After the match team manager Harmes said’ I am a little disappointed not to win our home match, but we have shown we can compete with Doncaster, one more female athlete would have made all the difference’ He went on to say’ But making the play off finals is an outstanding achievement, I will now have to see who is available for the finals. We want to go to the finals with a strong team and see what we can achieve’
U17 Women
Jessica Watson HAM-1B/25.07m SP-2A/7.72m
Steph O’connor 100m-3A-12.9 200m-1A/26.5
Ellica Bones DT-1A/28.65m JAV-3B/14.95m SP-2A/8.34m
U20 Women
Georgina O’Conner 400m-1A/66.3 LJ-1A/5.10m
Beth Hammond 800m-3B/2.42.8 1500m-1B/5.51.0 100mH-2A/20.0 400Mh-1A/76.8
Sheridan McWilliam 800m-4A/2.49.2 1500m-4A/5.45.4 3000m-2A/11.57.0 LJ-3B-2.36m
Laura Maplethorpe DT-1B/20.27m HAM-1A/36.62m JAV-4A/20.79m
4x100m Relay
5th- 58.6 1Georgina O’ Connor 2 Elicia Bones 3 Laura Maplethorpe 4 Alice Kaye
4x400m Relay
3rdh- 4.28.2 1 Beth Hammond 2 Steph Oconnor 3 Georgina O’Conner 4 Alice Kaye
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U17 MEN
Callum Smith 100m-guest/12.0
Tom Briggs LJ-2B/5.19m TJ-guest/12.44m
Tom Andrews JAV-3B/26.28m TJ-1B/11.55m
Nathan Togun 100m-2B/11.4 200m-3B/23.8 SP-5A/10.25m
Alex Merrill 400m-4A/61.1 SP-4A/7.37m
Andrew Harmes 400m-3B/65.0 110Mh-3B/24.3 400mH-2B/76.3
Anthony Gillatt DT-4A/28.20m HAM-3A/30.38m JAV-4A/33.20m
Elliott Stones 800m-2A/2.03.1 1500m-1A/4.25.8
Joshua Houlden PV- 2A/2.00m DT-2B/23.97m HJ-3A/1.65m
U20 MEN
Dominic Green 100m-2A/11.4 200m-2A/22.5
Lewis Stones 800-1B/2.17.1
Joshua Reid 2000mS/C-1A/7.26.3
Ian Maplethorpe 400mH-3A/71.4 3000m-1B/11.01.1
Matthew Houlden 110mH-1A/16.4 LJ-2A/6.42m TJ-1A/13.82m
Jake Oxby 1500m-3B/45.15.4 3000m-2A/10.22.5 2000mS/C-1B/8.35.4
4x100m Relay
3rd-46.4 1Matthew Houlden 2 Dom Green 3 Andrew Harmes 4 Nathan Togun
4x400m Relay
4th- 3.49.8 1 Josh Houlden 2 Elliott Stones 3 Josh Reid 4 Matthew Houlden
MATCH RESULT
1 DNC 462
2 SCU 451
3 BOS 339
4 RTM 320
5 SHF 191
League STANDINGS (after 4 matches)
1 Doncaster
2 Scunthorpe
3 Sheffield
4 Rotherham
5 Boston
6 Hull
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