BAL Premiership Match Two
WGEL Men's BAL team arrived for the second fixture at Lea Valley to hear the good news that they had been moved up to 5th, from 6th after the first fixture, due to Birchfield having used ineligible athletes. In a tight fixture at Lea Valley, where there were personal bests for Jack Lawrie, Daniel Rowden and Alex Bell, but without a handful of key athletes, Woodford placed 6th with 268 points, as Shaftesbury won with 310, from Birchfield on 299, Sheffield 296, Enfield 290 and Sale 275. 
Behind Woodford were Newham on 243 and Glasgow with 195. Woodford are 6th in the Premiership table with 7 match points, ahead of Newham and Glasgow with 4 and 2. Sheffield lead with 14, from Shaftesbury on 13, Enfield 11, Sale 11 and Birchfield 9.
Photos (by Alex Wardle)
Jack Lawrie (pictured below) placed 3rd over 400mH, and consolidated his place at the top of the UK U/20 Rankings as he marginally improved his personal best to 52.17. The UKA standard for selection for the European U/20 Championships is 51.80 secs. Jack also raced over 110mH where he was 5th with 14.94 secs (-1.7) as SAL Team Manager Alan James filled in for the "B" event and gained valuable 6th placed points with 22.00 secs.
Ewan Dyer ran in the "B" 400mH, and with a very strong final 150m ended up a clear winner with 52.98 secs., Another junior hoping to target those European Championships, but over 800m was Daniel Rowden, who raced in the "B" 400m and placed 3rd in a personal best of 48.48 secs. In the "A" string, and only in his second race of the season Alex Bell, significantly improved his personal best as he placed 5th in a very standard race with a time of 47.79 secs.
The following wind along the back straight that had helped the 400m athletes was a clear hindrance to the sprinters who had to battle into sometimes severe headwinds. Over 100m Omololu Abiodun was 6th with 11.00 secs( -1.9), and in the "B" Jermaine Hamilton was a good 2nd into an even stronger wind with 11.08 secs (-3.8). Both ran well over 200m with Omololu 3rd in the "A" with 21.71 secs (-1.8), and Jermaine 2nd in the "B" with 21.94 secs (-0.9). The 800m races saw high quality fields and in the "A" Jon Cook was 5th with 1m51.66 secs, and Nathan Wake 6th in the "B" with 1m55.96 secs. Tom Phillips who looks as if he he is moving closer to his best form was competitive in a good quality 1500m, placing 6th with 3m54.55 secs, and in the "B", Andrew Mariani, back on the track after two years and persistent injury placed 4th with 3m57.72 secs. The 5000m was a true run race in the windy conditions, Ed Shepherd, was not quite at his best, possibly still with his 14m28 p.b. in his legs from the prior weekend, but nevertheless was 5th in the "B" with 15m11.83 secs, which left debutant and marathon specialist Paul Martelletti to score as the "A" man where he was 7th with 14m59.65 secs. In the 3000m s/ch Tomaz Plibersek paid a little for going with the early pace but placed 6th with 9m38.o5 secs, with Ryan Mckinlay far from fit, still gaining valuable "B" string 3rd placed points with 10m 37.71 secs.
The hammer throwers had opened proceedings on the field where Andy Frost placed 3rd in the "A" with 65.31m, and Harry Clarke 2nd in the "B" with 54.82 secs.. In the discus, Chris Linque was 6th with 46.90m with Devon Douglas 4th in the "B" with 46.63m. In the shot, BUCS champion Youcef Zatat (pictured below) continued to just get the better of Anthony Oshodi as Youcef placed 4th in the "A" with 16.47m and Anthony winning the "B" with 16.30m. 
In the javelin it was pleasing to see Simon Bennett back over 60m, where his 60.38m was 6th in the "A", and also 6th, in the "B" was Jay Boddington with 53.08m.
The jumping events proved tougher for Woodford on this occasion, where in the Pole Vault, after clearing 4.50m, winner of the first match, Dan Gardner had to retire with an ankle injury, and sadly debutant, junior Nikko Hunt failed his opening height of 4.40m. In the high jump and missing usual "A" string man Robert Wolski, recovering from a cycling accident, Jack Lochans moved up to the "A" string where in a high standard competition with three men at 2,20m he placed 6th with 1.95. In the "B" another debutant, Kashif Jones was also 6th with 1.85m. In the triple jump there was a solid performance from Thalasong Tshireletso who was 4th with 14.66m (+0.1) and also 7th in the long jump with 6.66m (+1.7). Christman Ihuoma who hasn't competed for some time whist concentrating on studies was called in to help out at short notice and placed 6th in the "B" triple jump with 12.07m w (+2.2) and also 6th in the "B" long jump with 5.62m (+1.2).
The 4x100 squad continued their unbeaten run as Justin Duru, Omololu Abiodun, Jermaine Hamilton and Joseph Dewar (2nd handover pictured above) combined to win comfortably in 41.22 secs, and the 4x400m team of Ewan Dyer, Jack Lawrie, Dan Rowden and Alex Bell were 3rd with 3m16.81 secs. The third round of the BAL Premiership is at Glasgow on July 11th.