SAL: another 2nd complicates promotion maths

Denesha Rocastle SAL 4 2018 At the end of an intriguing match which saw sharp changes between the top 3 clubs through the day, WGEL finished runner-up to hosts Luton but ahead of Serpentine in match 4 of the Southern Athletics League (SAL) on Saturday 14 July. From the start it was obviously a 3-way battle, with our regular rivals this season Ilford set for fourth and West Norfolk and West Suffolk providing cameos from a handful of good athletes without supporting teams.

Results

Photos (by Alex Wardle)

It quickly became clear that Serpentine were aiming to win via filling the teamsheet, and with no gaps they took a notable lead early on. However as the day wore on quality told and it became a battle between the hosts, who were strongest overall in the women and Woodford with a stronger men’s squad. Bad luck and injuries in our men’s team ultimately made the difference after a fine struggle on a warm day at a venue whose bowl shape seemed to lock in heat but encouraged some good performances by minimising wind.

UKWL 2nd Round

Woodford’s women’s team was at the 2nd fixture of the UKWL Division One at Crawley on Sunday. Unfortunately, a full set of accurate results has not yet been made available by the organisers and those currently published on Po10 contain errors in the high jump, notably excluding Moe Sasegbon’s 1.85m clearance and personal best, and likely some errors in some other events also. Nevertheless, it seems as if the women will have finished 4th on the day (with a slight possibility of elevation to 3rd when the errors are corrected) and then will lie 2nd in the division ahead of Notts by a few match points and some way behind leaders Cardiff leading into the final fixture at Leigh on August 5th. In addition to Moe’s high jump personal best there were others for Eloise Lewis, Taygan Henry and two for Gabriella Ade-Onojobi, a win for Lucy Marshall and many other good performances and great team spirit as athletes rallied round to ensure as few gaps as possible.

Results

Photos (by Alex Wardle & Terry McCarthy)

UKWL 2 4x100 squad

4x100m team, l. to r.: Gabriella Ade-Onojobi, Jo Ryan, Eloise Lewis, Moe Sasegbon

BAL Premiership Round 3

The BAL’s “Big Saturday” took place at Bedford this weekend, with all 5 divisions present at the venue. Last year, the first for this experimental format, was full of controversy, with the meeting over-running by more than 2 hours. This year, blessed with good weather, the meeting ran better, but not perfectly. The track timetable was largely adhered to but the high jump ran significantly late as did some other field events. But on the whole and, despite problems with producing the Premierships final results, it was a much better fixture than last year’s version.

The good weather, and favourable winds for the sprints resulted in many good performances across the divisions, including from Woodford athletes, where a superb all-round team effort saw Woodford place second on the day. The Premiership fixture was very close at the top, where Birchfield again ran out winners on 340 points, from Woodford 325, Shaftesbury 317, NEB 310, Sheffield 248, TVH 248, Cardiff 228 and Swansea who had a very poor turn out on 119. That leaves the League standings Birchfield 24, Shaftesbury 18, Woodford 16, Sheffield 15.5, Newham 11, Cardiff 11, TVH 9.5 and Swansea 3. In what was another very solid all-round team effort with many athletes doubling or more, Woodford performances were led by double wins for Phil Norman (3000m and “B” 800) and Jack Lawrie (400mH and "B" 110mH) and other wins for Cameron Fillery and Canaan Solomon.

Results

Tosin Oke BAL 2 2018 small