BAL Premiership Match Three
A somewhat depleted WGEL's men's team finished 5th in the third of the four fixtures in the BAL Premiership at Barnett Copthall on Saturday. They scored 269 points as Shatfesbury won, and Woodford now lie in 4th place overall in the League. Woodford's efforts were led by "A" string wins for both Mark Dry and Sam Watts, but there were many other good performances and plenty of team spirit as some athletes stepped into unfamiliar events.Mark Dry who was very unlucky not to be selected as Britain's sole hammer competitor at London 2012, produced a solid series as he won this competition with 71.56m. Mark also gained some other valuable points as he stood in for injured javelin specialists, and placed 6th in the 'A" with 52.91m.
The middle distance races were good quality tactical affairs. In the "A" 800m Oli Heeks was 5th in 1m52.29 secs, whilst in the "B" , 17 year old Matt McLaughlin, fresh from his impressive mid-week 1500m pb of 3m48.43 secs, placed 3rd with 1m53.63 secs. The 1500m saw Alex Cornwell 4th in 3m54.18 secs, and Tom Phillips winning the "B" with 3m57.58 secs.The 3000m was of good quality, and debutant, Peter Matthews in his first track race of the season due to injury ran very solidly to place 6th in the "A" with 8m36.79 secs, whilst Tom Beedell was 7th in the "B" with 8m52.63 secs. The 3000m s/ch was also of a good standard and Ryan McKinlay's pb of 9m16.94 secs only placed him 5th, as Tomas Pilbersek won the "B" with 9m28.58 secs. Mike Baker in his first race for a few weeks was satisfied with his "A" 400mH effort where he recorded 52.78 secs for 4th. In the "B" Sam Makelout another BAl debutant stood in for an injured Francis Smith, and finished 6th with 60.06 secs. Sam also gained some other valuable points, in the "B" pole vault with 2.20m and in the "B" javelin where he was 8th with 40.03m. Lacking any specialist high hurdlers, jumpers gamely stepped in and gained points. Triple jumper Peter Karibo was 8th in the "A" with 18.87 secs, and in the "B" , long jumper Healson Ihuoma was 7th with 20.15secs. Healson had earlier been a little frustrated with his long jump where he struggled somewhat with his run-up and jumped for him, a modest 6.65m to place 6th. Having even more run-up troubles was young Joseph Dewar whose one valid jump of 5.60m placed the English Schools champion 8th in the "B". Healson also gained points in the high jump with his 1.80m for 8th in the "A", as Alasdair Strange cleared the same height for 7th in the "B". Alasdair had earlier cleared 4.40m in the pole vault for 8th in the "A", and later placed 2nd in the "B" triple jump with 13.53m w (+4.1). In the "A" triple jump, Prince Ezenwa made his BAL debut and placed 3rd with his 14.79m (+1.3). In the discus it was pleasing to have Emeka Udechuku back in action, but he lost out to Tom Norman by just 1cm on this occasion, as Tom's 56.09m placed him 2nd in the "A", and Emeka's 56.08m won the "B". In the shot Emeka recorded a modest 14.25m for 8th, and Tom, 12.02m for 7th in the "B"
The 4x100m relay squad (Ihuoma, Watts, Omolulo Abiodun, Kirby-Polidore) which consisted of three first year seniors and one junior, combined well to record 41.33 secs for 2nd, and in a good quality 4x400m the squad of Abiodun 49.6 secs, Kirby-Polidore 49.2 secs, Heeks 48.5 secs, and Hedman 46.6 secs, found 3m13.9 secs only good enough for 4th.
In the circumstances team manger Gladys Bird was reasonably satisfied with the 5th place on the day, but will be hoping for a stronger team and to finish with an improved overall League standing, for the final fixture at Liverpool on August 18th.