BAL Premiership Match Four
WGwEL’s senior men’s team placed a close second in the final BAL Premiership fixture of the season at Newham on Saturday. City of Manchester (Sale Harriers) won the fixture with 340 points from Woodford on 326, Sheffield on 278 and Birchfield on 274. Sale won the League title with 29 points, and Woodford placed second on 25, now having placed no worse than 3rd since winning the title in 2005. Birchfield placed 3rd on 24, and last year’s champions NEB in fourth on 19 points. At the bottom of the table, both Enfield and Haringey and Cardiff were relegated. Team manager Gladys Bird was very pleased with what was a fine all round team performance with all athletes making valuable contributions. Maximum points in winning both the “A” and “B” strings in the high jump from Robert Wolski and Ben Challenger and discus from Emeka Udechuku and Tom Norman were of note, as was a 4x100m victory from a team which included 3 junior athletes.
Those high jump and discus events were two of those most affected from very heavy rain. In the “A” high jump Robert Wolski won with a clearance of 2.15m, and was very close to 2.20m, whilst Ben Challenger won the “B” with 2.10m. These were fine efforts from a very wet and slippery high jump fan. The discus throwers were similarly affected by the rain and a very wet throwing circle, but Emeka Udechuku, whose season has been a low key one following recent fatherhood, was able to win a very close “A” competition with 53.74m and Tom Norman won the “B” with 53.05 secs. Emeka then also had a solid shot competition as he placed 4th in the ‘A” with 16.58m, and Anthony Oshodi was 2nd in the “B” with 15.09m. The other throwing events, as usual, produced good points for Woodford. In the hammer, Mark Dry placed 2nd in the “A” with 68.85m and Andy Frost was also 2nd in the “B” with 66.54m. The javelin saw Simon Bennett place 4th with 61.63m and Stuart Harvey won the “B” with 57.65, good performances from two athletes who have been hampered by injury all season. Elsewhere in the field, and also affected by the heavy rain, Ezekiel Ewulo was 3rd in the “A” long jump with 7.23m (+0.3) and in the “B”, junior Healson Ihuoma was 2nd with 6.78m (+1.2). In the pole vault Alasdair Strange, sadly no-heighted, James Wright cleared 4.20m, but was then elevated to the"A" where he placed 6th. However, missing speacialist triple jumpers, Alasdair stepped in to place 6th in the “A” triple jump with 13.04m (+0.2) and Healson Ihume gained further valuable points placing 4th in the “B” with 12.89m (-4.5).
The track events started with a high standard 400mH and Francis Smith placed 6th in that with 53.64 secs, and James Wright was 5th in the “B” with 60.39 secs. That same pair competed in the 110mH, Smith placing 5th in the “A” with 15.48 secs (+0.5) and Wright was 4th in the “B” with 15.74 secs. In the 100m, Toyi Durotoye was disqualified for a false start but, in the “B”, junior Sam Watts was 4th in 10.97 secs (-0.5), and later impressively won the “B” 200m with 21.59 secs, as another junior, Jordan Kirby-Polidore, was a fine 3rd in the “A” with 21.31 secs (+0.1). In the 400m, decathlete Dan Awde was narrowly beaten into 2nd place in the “A” race where he recorded 47.53 secs, whilst in the “B” Nathan Wake was 5th with 50.06 secs. Over 800m Andy Mariani was 5th in the “A” with 1m53.63 secs, and in the “B” Tom Phillips was also 5th with1m53.23 secs, and in a tactical 1500m Jon Cook placed 5th in the “A” with 3m 54.47 secs, whilst in the “B” Alex Cornwell was 2nd with 3m59.39 secs. The 5000m also brought good points as Hywel Care placed 4th with 14m41.66 secs, and Dan Agustus was 2nd in the “B” with 15m06.43 secs. The 3000m s/ch also brought the good points, as it has done all season, with Ryan Mckinlay 4th in the “A” with 9m32.36 secs, and Tomaz Plibersek 3rd in the “B” with 9m37.46 secs.
The relays rounded off the meeting and the 4x100m team won for the second BAL fixture in succession, this time with a squad which included three juniors as Omololu Abiodun, Sam Watts, Toyi Durotoye and Jordan Kirby-Polidore combined to record 41.23 secs, and the 4x400m team of Abiodun, Nathan Wake, Mike Baker and Dan Awde placed 5th with 3m19.03 secs.
Full results here