NEYDL Meeting 3 Monkton 28th June

[28-Jun-2015]

The North East Youth Development League is a fantastic competition for our young athletes to gain experience at competing across the Track and Field events. We form a composite team with Alnwick Harriers, which allows our two relatively small clubs to compete against the larger clubs. This meeting at Monkton Stadium was the third event of four this season, and even though a few regulars were missing, we still had a very strong team and crucially many newcomers who performed way beyond expectations.  There were many great performances from our Alnwick team-mates, but below is a summary of how out Blyth athletes performed.

U13 Girls - Morgan Stansfield ran in the 100m ‘B’ race, and put up a solid performance against girls a year older. Her run in the 200m ‘A’ race was far more impressive, as Morgan smashed her PB with 34.7s. Ellie Morris was a late call up in the ‘B’ race, and despite claiming that she didn’t want to run because it would be ‘boring’, she flew around the bend to take a commanding win in 31.0s to set an U13 club record.

Morgan & Ellie were in action again in the hurdles, with Ellie wining the ‘A’ race in 12.5s, to match the time she had run the previous day in the schools championships. Morgan had a superb run in the ‘B’ race, and finished an excellent 2nd, with a new PB of 16.4s.

Ellie Campbell was our long jump representative, fresh off the back of winning bronze at the schools championships the day before. She jumped 3.40m into a strong headwind, but should be pleased with her progress with her run-up.

Ellie Morris was looking to bounce back after a disastrous high jump at the schools championships, and she did so in style, wining the competition with 1.40m, before just failing to set a new league record of 1.47m.

U15 Girls - Rebecca Barton was making her first appearance of the season, and ran well in the 200m to finish 3rd in the ‘B’ race.  Anya Christopher was running in her 2nd 800m in as many days, and ran well to finish 4th in the ‘A’ race. Rebecca Barton went in the ‘B’ race in her first attempt at the distance, and did great to finish 2nd. There is great potential for her to improve further once she understands the race craft required for this distance.

In the 75m hurdles, Eleanor Gurney backed up her PB performance the previous day with and identical time of 15.6s to finish 3rd in the ‘A’ race, whilst in the Long Jump Anya Christopher saved her best until last to jump a new PB of 3.51m to take an excellent 3rd in the ‘A’ competition. 

Brand new Blyth athlete Olivia Quinn impressed on her debut, with a 14.7s 100m, followed by an 11.98m Javelin throw to take 3rd in the ‘A’ event. Rebecca was again in action in the shot put, throwing a new PB of 5.82m, whilst Eleanor gave the event a shot, and did great with a 5.45m throw. The relay team put in a great performance to take 3rd with 60.3s.  

Alice Dungworth was our sole U17 representative, and in addition to acting as a mentor to the younger girls, she won the 100m and 300m with ease, and came third in the shot put with 6.86m PB. 

Kyle Mclaren was our only U13 boy, and on his debut he put in a tremendous performance to take 2nd in the boys 100m B race in 15.7s. He also ran in the 800m, and took a superb 3rd in the ‘A’ race in 3:03.5.  

Our U15 boys team was as strong as ever, with Adam Swalwell looking to have won his 100m ‘A’ race, but was given a controversial 2nd place by the officials. Middle distance mega-star Josh Fiddaman showed he has plenty of speed over 200m to take 2nd in 27.8, taking nearly 4 seconds off his PB. Liam Marsh ran in the ‘B’ race and took 2nd place.  

Adam Swalwell continued his great form over 300m to comfortably win the ‘A’ race in 40.9s, whilst in the 800m Josh narrowly lost out in a sprint finish to finish 2nd in the ‘A’ race. Liam took 4th in the 1500m ‘A’ race, whilst Cameron Mclaren ran 14.4s in his non-scoring 100m. 

Making his Blyth debut was our new specialist Javelin thrower Matthew Fairhurst. He won the competition with east with a huge 30.52m, easily a club record for his age group. Josh backed this up by winning the ‘B’ competition with a new PB. Adam won the discus with 12.76m, whilst the relay team narrowly missed out on victory to finish 2nd. 

Jake Masterman was our only U17 male, and he demonstrated fine racecraft and a strong finish to win the 800m in an impressive 2:09. In a showdown against his good friend from NS Poly, he just lost out but ran a big PB of 64.3s. Finally, Jake won his first High jump comp with 1.48m. 

Again the team finished in 3rd place, and whilst we lacked depth in numbers the quality of the performances was great to see. The final event is on the 19th July at Jarrow, and it would be great to see the team finish the season with a flourish!

Regards

Dan