Win at SAL3 in Cambridge
Woodford won the 3rd SAL fixture of the year at Cambridge on Sunday 13th July. The match had looked likely to be a contest between WGEL and Dacorum, who went into the match just ahead in second in the division 2 NE league table with the other clubs at the wrong end of the 18 team division. A tightly fought match saw Woodford establish an early advantage that ultimately proved decisive as Dacorum started slower but came through strongly for a clear second ahead of Ilford, hosts Cambridge & Coleridge, Harlow and Basildon.
Female athlete of the match Lucy Marshall set the tone at the start of the day with a 50.82 hammer win. Isabelle Kyson opened on the track with a clear win in the 400m hurdles. While Henry Akaluka wasn’t quite able to match this with 2nd in the men’s event U17M Rahul Solanki won the B string in his first attempt at the higher barriers (63.50). Rahul subsequently went on to win the B pole vault behind fellow U17M Stephen Ng’s A string win, matching the double first for Giselle Moulton and U17W Amber Higgs-Smith in the women.
The top men’s points scorer was Aaron Edwards, who started the day trying to prove his son Blake wasn’t the only high jumper in the family. Aaron finished second in the B HJ before winning the shot (12.40) and taking second in the discus and B javelin (behind Henry Bennet). Ahead of Aaron in the high jump was Wilfred Williams who later won the triple jump (13.14). Adding to strong men’s field points Hugh Williams took the B shot, while behind him in the hammer M55 Fergus Harford took full B points despite finishing behind paired club Ilford. The women’s throwers were even stronger, including a double win in the W SP that included a surprise PB of almost a metre by Peanut Meekings (10.63) with Rebecca Wright’s 10.28PB second overall. Peanut came back to break Kirsty Bateman-Foley’s SAL winning streak in the javelin (with 41.03) as the two finished well clear of the rest of the field. Dani Broom ensured a clean sweep of women’s A string throws with a dominant win in the discus (43.34).
Top women’s points scorer was U17W Shalom Prince, including clear wins in the A 100m and 200m. Isabelle Kyson was another double individual winner adding the 400 flat to the hurdles with U17 Daisy Anderson adding the B string. Male wins on the track were proving harder to come by, other than the B string 400 by U17M Samuel Kolawole. Along with gaps on the women’s track this helped Dacorum start to threaten to overhaul what had been a strong lead. The tide was turned when Josh Entwistle pulled away to win the 5000, backed up by a strong track 5000m debut by U17M George Watkins who dominated the B string in 15:54.50. Josh then promptly went straight over to the 110 hurdles, emboldening Henry Akaluka to try the highest height barriers for the first time and between them they added 9 unexpected points that were unanswered by Dacorum as Josh took the B string win.
Victory appeared to be in sight be the time the 200s finished, in which WGEL only dropped one point despite Merveilles Massembo just being edged out by Ilford, with Dante Pollard taking the B. Young pole vaulters Amber Higgs-Smith and Stephen Ng helped minimise the gaps in the 1500m, with Stephen surprisingly pushing on for 3rd in the B behind Samuel Singh. Welcome reinforcements from another fixture anchored 2 relay wins to ensure the overall success, from the women’s 4x100m (Rebecca Wright, Shalom Prince, Mame-Nhyira Coleman and Habiba Tijani) and finally the men’s 4x400m (Merveilles Massembo, Salvatore Passerini, Zach Bridges and a commanding 49.1 from Adrian Richards).
The result means that the team’s promotion fate is in its own hands going into the final fixture at Ware on Saturday 30 August. A win would ensure a top 2 promotion place, with potential to win the division, while 2nd in that match might just prove to be enough to go up.