In the u15 boys age group where Berkshire came 3rd overall, Samuel Randall followed up his 400m bronze at the English champs with a superb win with 52.17 in the final, Jack Hatton maintained his 11.8 by finishing 4th in the 80m hurdles, and fast improving Luke Angell threw over the 40m barrier to come 6th in the Javelin with 40.66

Justin Lakey came 6th in the high jump only clearing 1.80 and Micheal Randall was called up from the u17s to do the 1500m where he finished 10th with 4.26, the u20s came 6th overall

The u15 girls were well represented by the club, Izzie Mchattie, who has anther year in this age group came 5th in the Javelin with 34.56 , Freya Eaton came 5th in her heat of the 75m hurdles with 12.2, and Yolanda Nicholson took part in the long jump but unfortunately recorded 3 no jumps.

Jack Hatton came 4th in his heat of the 80m hurdles in 11.8 but just missed out on a place in the final.

Despite the conditions our girls performed extremely well on the day and there were some very strong individual performances. Emma Seymour was on form in the throws and she equalled her pbs in both the shot (7.77) and discus (24.35) to claim 4th and 1st places in the respective events. She also ran well in the 800m to gain us valuable points.

We also had some great successes on the track. Georgina Bradford ran superbly in the U15 girls 1500m to win convincingly in 5:08.3 against strong competition from Oxford City.
Freya Eaton won the U15 girls 75m hurdles in 12.5s despite only just returning to training after a two week holiday and she also claimed 3rd place in the B string 200m.
Codie Burnett was narrowly beaten into 2nd place in the A string 200m (28.0) and she also managed 2nd place in the long jump.
Chloe Scaplehorn ran a strong race in the 800m to finish 6th in a time of 2:42.8s, just outside her pb.

In the senior events we again had success in the throws with Alisha Bradford winning the B string discus and claiming 3rd place in the A string javelin. Letitia Rizen also threw well to win the B string shot with a throw of 7.55m and she claimed 4th place in the discus. Letitia gained valuable points for us too by running in the 100m and 200m.
Although we were short of several athletes for this match we did gain Steph Poulson who is a great all rounder. Poor Steph who has just finished her finals at Oxford University and has not done any athletics all season competed in five events and brought in many points for us. Her crowning glory was coming 2nd in the 100m hurdles. Our only senior middle distance runner on the day was Jenny Eaton and she ran well ( considering her recent holiday!) to finish 5th in the 1500m. Kim Wheeler, Vicki Bradford and Sue Seymour also competed gained us extra points.

Many thanks go to everybody who competed on Saturday, particularly those of you who ran, jumped or threw in events you do not normally do. Your team spirit is very much appreciated. Thanks also to those who helped officiate various events throughout the day. Special thanks go to Kim Wheeler in her capacity as our only qualified official… she was superb.

All in all we had a really good day. The atmosphere at the Southern Women’s League matches is always great and everybody has fun.

However we could do with some more athletes for our last match of the season in Bournemouth on Saturday September 4th and it would be great to have a full squad.
If the weather is kind to us we will be going to the beach afterwards for an end of season swim and picnic.

Please contact me if you are interested in joining us.

Today was a particularly strong demonstration in jumping and hurdling by the Kennet men: Jono Wylie, who has been away for three weeks, impressively still managed to run a personal best in the 400m Hurdles of 60.3 secs to win the A-string. He then followed this with a strong 400m, triple jump and leg in the 4*400m relay. Richard Knape showed that his jumping prowess continues to go from strength-to-strength with an easy win in the B-string 400m hurdles and wins in the A 110m hurdles, B High Jump and B pole vault.

Kennet’s strength in hurdling was further demonstrated with Justin Lakey coming away with an excellent win in the 110m hurdles in 16.6 seconds. It proved to be an excellent day for Justin: he managed a 100% win count with victories in the long jump (5.69m) and High Jump (1.90m).

In the throws, Graham Chambers came away with valuable points in the B-string discus and hammer and threw a season’s best in the shot putt. Joining Graham in the throws was Simon Scholes who, in addition to a solid shot putt and hammer, threw a season’s best in the javelin. Simon also competed in the pole vault where he leapt to an impressive new club record of 3.70m and followed this with a solid anchor leg in the 4*400m relay.

The younger members of the squad took their chance to shine today: under-17 athlete Peter Saunders demonstrated he is well on the road back from injury with a third place in the 100m and an excellent 29.36m in the B javelin.

Alex Roue showed his strength and stamina work throughout the summer season has paid off with personal bests in the B-string 400m (57.1secs) and the in the B 200m (24.8secs) – which took place immediately after the 400m Aiden Marshall put in another strong performance in the 200m with a run of 24.3s to earn valuable points.

U17 middle distance specialists Luke Conway & Michael Randall ran excellent 800m races to earn a second place in the A event and a win in the B event respectively and then backed that up with seconds in both the A and B-string 1500m.

U20 Tom Milburn demonstrated that his talent as a distance runner is really starting to shine: in a competitive A-string 5000m race, Tom finished second A. He was ably backed up by Jack Eaton who finished second B.  Tom then went on to demonstrate his strength with a second place in the A-string 3000m steeplechase in a PB in an U20 club record time of 11.09mins.

The relays rounded off the day with an excellent display of running in the 4 x 100m by Aiden Marshall, Peter Saunders, Richard Knape and Alex Roue for a well deserved third place and Luke Conway, Bertie Lewis, Jono Wylie and Simon Scholes coming home second in the 4 x 400m.

Team Kennet earned a well deserved win in the final match of the season to finish fourth in the league table.

OXFORD CITY 603 1
TEAM KENNET 518 2
SLOUGH JUNIORS 327 3
NEW FOREST 247 4
NEWBURY 208 5
PORTSMOUTH 159 6

The under 13 girls kept up there winning streak by winning their match by a huge margin and taking the age group league title. Double wins came from Millie Calkin in the 200m 28.9 and Carys Cox 31.2. Amelia Wenlock took full control in the 800m to win in 2.33.3 and was backed by Chloe Scaplehorn in the B string to win in 2.42.2.
Another double came from Georgina Bradford in the 1200m winning convincly in 3.56 for a national grade 1, with Cox taking the B string in 4.25. Sarah Saunders won the B string 100m which was the fastest of both races in 13.9 with Calkin 2nd in the A string 14.2. The relay quartet of Calkin, Ryder, Bradford and Saunders kept there unbeaten run going with 58.1, while Jordan Donavon won the B string Hurdles.
In the Field events Sarah Saunders won the A string Discus 21.2 while Bradford took the B string with 17.24m. Saunders made it 3 wins on the day in the Javelin 20.68 for the girls to win by over 50pts on the day.

The u15 boys also made it 4 wins out of 4 and claimed the age group league title. Conlan McDonald showing his talent in the sprints with a 12.0 in the 100m for 2nd place and 24.7 in the 200m for a B string win. Josh Willock won the B string 100m in 12.4 and was 2nd in the A string 200 25.3. The ever consistent Samuel Randall took full control of his 400m and 800m to win both races. Jack Hatton cruised to a victory in the 80m hurdles 11.9 nat grade 1 with good back up from Matt Davies winning the B string in 12.5. The relay quartet of Randall, Puttock, Wiillock and Mcdonald edged out Oxford for a good win in 50 seconds. The field events secured good points for the club with Freddie Fane winning the long jump in 5.16, Matt Davies taking the B string high jump, Luke Angell the B string Shot 8.61 and his best event the javelin winning with a 37.95m throw.

The under 15 girls although coming 2nd on the day secured enough points to win the league as well, a great double win in the 100m from Yolanda Nicholson 12.9 and Codie Burnett 13.5 were the best on the track, while the field events secured a lot of points, the long jump Nicholson won with 4.89, while the usual wins came in the throws, a double win in the shot izzy Mchattie 10.62 nat. grade 1 and Kitty Brockbank 8.55, while she also won the b string discus with emma seymour 2nd in the A string. The Javelin saw Mchattie win by over 6m with 29.93 and Brockbank secure her third win of the day with 24.34.

The under 17 mens team were slightly stronger with a superb 2nd place on the day Aidan Marshall and Alex Roue both 2nd in the 100m and 200m, Luke Conway won his 400m 55.8 and 800m, with the relay team of Roue, Marshall, Saunders and Conway coming home in 2nd place. On the field Peter Saunders won the long jump 5.67 with Roue 2nd in the B string, with new comer Cameron Davis securing good points in the high jump and shot and javelin.

The under 13 boys just missed out on a win by coming home in 3rd place to secure a 4th place overall in their age group, missing half of the last match team members, they still produced the goods on the day, Marcus Rabbetts winning the B string 100m, and 2nd in the A string 200m. Jordan Hole won the 1500m with Alex Davis 3rd in the B string. and a double win in the hurdles saw Joe Fisher win with 14 seconds and Hole taking the B string, Fisher cleared 1.35 in the high jump for 2nd place, while Christian Randall took B string wins in the Javelin and Discus, with Adam Conway 2nd in the Javelin and Discus A strings.

The under 17 women finished 3rd on the day Charlotte Polding won the 80m hurdles the only track win for the club in this age group while again on the field Alishia Bradford won the Shot and Discus A strings and Katie Herbert the B string Discus.

At the end of the day Team Kennet had all 6 age groups in the top 6 of the league out of 19 clubs making it the best ever result in this league.

The best individual total of the day was from George Armstrong with 242 points to give him 3rd place overall on the day. Luke MacMahon (207) and Max Uden (203) also scored over 200 points.
In the 75m sprint, George was the fastest Team Kennet boy in 11.6s followed by Max and Rory McCullough in 11.9s.while for the girls, Aimee Cussell was fastest in 12.2 with Kira Angell in 12.6s and Chloe Jones in 12.9s

In the 600m, Max was fastest in 2:01 followed by George in 2:02 and Matthew Grey in 2:08, while for the girls Chloe Jones was fastest in 2:12 with Kira in 2.20 and Elli Randall in 2:25.

In the Long Jump, George was best with 3.73m followed by Luke 3.35m and Rory 3:25m. For the girls, Chloe jumped 2.83m followed by Beth Jones 2.42m and Mai Brown with 2.21m.

And in the Vortex throw, Oliver Hewitt threw 38.06 followed by Luke 30.12 and George 29.40 and for the girls Chloe threw 18.59, Rachel Allan 13.66 and Kira 13.05.

In the throws, the team welcomed back Simon Briggs for his first competition of the year and he didn’t disappoint: he won the Hammer A-string competition in a new club record of 36.08m, threw an impressive 9.96m in the A-stirng Shot Putt and finished the day with a solid third place in the B-string discus. Graham Chambers provided solid backup to Simon with a second place B-string in the Hammer and two fourths in the shot and javelin. Simon Scholes was the third Kennet thrower who threw two season’s bests in the javelin and the discus to add valuable points to the scorecard.

The track events started with Richard Knape cruising to an easy win in the A-string 400m hurdles. In a style the team has now become accustomed to, Richard then went on to demonstrate his athletic versatility with two further first places in the A-string 110m and the B-string long jump.

Kennet’s strength in hurdling was accentuated with James Moorcroft, whose talents are normally reserved to events without barriers, providing a further win in the B-string 400m hurdles. In more familiar territory, Moorcroft went on to add a further B-string win in the 400m and a creditable second place in the B-string 1500m.

The younger members of the squad also took their chance to shine today: Under-17 athlete Peter Saunders jumped 6.10m in the long jump for a well deserved second-place A-string and rounded this off with an excellent run in the 100m and a win in the B triple jump. Fellow U17 Alex Roue showed his strength and stamina work has paid off with a win in the B-string 200m.Aiden Marshall put in another strong run in the face of stiff competition to earn valuable points with third-place in the A string 200m.

U17 middle distance specialist Michael Randall as usual didn’t disappoint with a strong 800m and 1500m to finish third and second A-strings respectively. Competing in his first match of the season, Luke Conway also ran an excellent 800m for first B-string.

U20 Tom Milburn demonstrated that his talent as a distance runner is really starting to shine: in a highly competitive A-string 5000m race, Milburn finished fourth and he then went on to demonstrate his strength with a third-place in the A-string 3000m steeplechase. Mark Shepherd provided excellent backup in the 5000m with a second place finish.

The match had been tight all afternoon, and the result was down to the 4 x 400m relay. Despite the “dream team” of Luke Conway, Neale Marlow, James Moorcroft and Richard Knape managing a new club record of 3:36.8, they where pipped to the line by the athletes from Andover to finish in second place.

Team Kennet missed out on the match win by one point, scoring 102 points against Andover’s 103. This is the fourth second place Kennet have managed in a row, and raises the team to fifth in the league table. The final match is on 31 July in Portsmouth.