On Saturday 30th July, Sale Harriers junior squad travelled to York as reigning Lower YDL Northern Champions. As most of the squad were either away on holiday or at the Commonwealth Games, the twenty athletes who did attend rallied together in true TEAM SPIRIT.
The first race of the day was the U15 girls hurdles which Niamh Dolan convincingly won in a time of 12.08 secs.
The sprinters for the U15 boys once again dominated the sprints with David Shobunde, Jefferson Adenuga and Max Cunningham all gaining 1st place. They later joined teammate, Joshua Blackburn to compete in the 4x 100m relay and gained a respectful 2nd place.
In the pole vault, Calum Park vaulted 3.20m to successfully achieve a PB and win the event. Later he joined teammates, Liam O’Brien, James O’Brien and Matthew Cullen Brown to run the 4x300m relay.
Our U13 boys had a clean sweep in the sprints, with Matthew Adenuga winning both the 75m & 150m (A race), with Kieran Stafford winning the 75m (B race) and Oliver Howell winning the 150m (B race). They then joined up with teammate Daniel Wells to also win the 4x100m relay in a time of 56.47secs.
Our top middle distance U13 boy is Daniel Oakes who ran a fantastic race to win the 1,200m in a time of 3mins 40.44secs.
Our U13 middle distance girls were once again outstanding! In the 800m race, Beatrix Soper won the A race and Lola Richardson won the B race. Not to be out done, Oonagh McManus then won the 1,200m A race and Caitlin Wetters won the B race. Oonagh, Lola and Caitlin then joined Lola Brown in the 4x100m relay.
Last but not least was Angel Amadin, who showed great potential as our top U13G thrower; achieving a new PB in the shot.
Despite stoic performances from all our athletes, we ended in 5th place with 317 points. A fantastic achievement with only 20 athletes!
With full squads, City Of York AC were the overall winners; with Wirral coming second – both clubs qualifying for the National YDL Final at Sportcity.
A big thanks to the coaches (x4) and parents who attended the final; two of which deferred the start of their summer holiday so that their daughters could compete. Respect to Patrick for driving the team minibus. And finally, a massive thanks to all the officials (Andy, Tony, Shonny, Fechin and Tom) who gave up their Saturday to help the team gain a valuable 40 points.
A great day was had by all.
A note from Sarah and Kirsty, “Just want to say a massive well done to all the athletes who took part in today’s match at York. The final results were York 552, Trafford 532.5, Sale 489, Kingdom composite 370 and Preston 367.5 So we finished a very creditable 3rd place in the whole of the North.
Sadly, this wasn’t quite enough to qualify for the National Final, but this was down to gaps in events that we were unable to fill (mainly in the men) rather than performances by athletes that were there. Every single athlete involved should be extremely proud of themselves (I know we are!) and should not be disheartened. You were all amazing, with some fantastic performances and many filling in in events outside your comfort zone, not to mention those that were going to watch the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham but still travelled to York first.
A very big thank you to all athletes, officials, coaches and parents and here’s to next year!
Sarah and Kirsty.”
Reported by Carl Worthington (Lower YDL Team Manager)
YDL York 2022
