Southern League Sutton 15th April 2017
Southern Athletics League Match Report- Fixture 1
Kent AC’s first fixture in the 2017 Southern Athletics League was on a cool, breezy Easter Saturday in Carshalton, a week before the London Marathon. Our squad was understandably a bit depleted but despite this, some magnificent performances helped us to 3rd place, only a few points behind St Mary’s in second.
Our team demonstrated all of the qualities that makes the Southern Athletics League great: enthusiastic club mates trying new events for the first time, top quality athletes recording elite level performances, and PBs and wins in events for people of all levels.
We had several star multi-eventers who accumulated a remarkable number of points for the team. Ian Ellwood scored a superb 13 points across 5 events, all of which he was competing at for the first time. A great effort from a real club man! Highlights were his win in the B string 2,000m steeplechase, 2nd place in the 800m and new PBs in the long jump (4.30m), high jump (1.30m) and javelin (7.96m).
Sally Ash was seen to be dashing around the arena all day, packing in every jump and throw possible to score a vital 11 points for the team. She showed her class at the triple jump and huge talent at the throws. Tracey Griffiths scored very well across the throws.
Kehinde Dauda was as usual a great performer across several events. It was a pleasure to watch his 400m hurdles technique as he disappeared into the distance to win that event convincingly.
Nobody worked harder than sprinter O’Shane Witter. He followed up impressive wins in the 400m (A string) and 100m (B string) with vital legs in the winning 100m and 400m relay teams and he also ran the 200m as a non-scorer. An excellent contribution!
Our male sprinters were the real class of the entire meeting. Nathan Brown is extremely fast and won the 100m in 11.06 and the 200m in 22.06, particularly good in windy conditions. This deservedly won him two Man of the Match awards. New guy Israel Ajala won the 200m B string. Along with O’Shane and Akeem Edwards they made up the quartet who were very impressive in winning both the 4*100m and 4*400m relays.
Individual wins in the 5,000m came from Jordan Weaver (15.24 on his track debut, also worthy of a Man of the Match award) and Stuart Beaney (16.28 in windy conditions, boding very well for the marathon). We also won both 1,500m races, Neil Philips had an excellent run winning in 4.13, and in one of the most exciting races of the day Sam Rowlands brilliantly dipped on the line to win the B string race in a new PB of 4.32. I gather his previous PB was 4.35 set in the St Albans schools district championships in 2004.
In another close finish Ethelbert Metzger won the 110m hurdles.
Amy Clements brilliantly won the 3,000m (a Women of Match performance), in the end easily beating a top class athlete from Epsom. Not bad with a hangover. Annabelle Hadlow picked up 2nd place in the B string, a great point-scoring performance for the team!
Adrian Dracup ran well to get second place in the 800m A race, this obviously didn’t too take much out of him as later in the day he smashed his 5,000m PB to record 18.54.91. Well done Adrian.
Thanks to all who competed.
Thanks to the volunteers & officials who did a great job (Ed and Annabelle Hadlow, Norman Fairbrass, Rob Moye, Tim Lawrence).
Thanks also to the coaches (Juno Field, Pete Boxhall, Joe Appiah) who helped organise athletes and came to support on the day.
And it was great to see a good number of family and friends coming to watch and support creating atmosphere on the day.
I’m excited about our potential for future matches, inevitably availability will improve through the season and we will go on to greater things!
Our other fixtures are:
Saturday 15th April – Carshalton
Sunday 21st May – Dartford
Saturday 17th June – Wimbledon
Saturday 8th July – Horsham
Sunday 20th August – Dartford