Another Great win in the Southern Athletics League

The Club enjoyed another decisive victory in Match 2 of the Southern Athletics League on Sunday, 12 June, with Team Manager Keith Scofield urging the squad to keep the momentum going into the next match in Oxford on 16 July.

This was the first of two 'home' matches, which in this case had to be hosted at the David Weir Centre, Carshalton, given that, frustratingly, the wait goes on for work on the track at Wimbledon Park to begin.

The sprint events gave some of the Club's younger talents a chance to shine alongside their more experienced counterparts. U20 Freddie Arkell won the 100m in 10.89, with Antonio Douglas taking full points for the B string in 11.11, while, in the 200m, sprint coach Devonte Casely-Hayford was second for the A string in 23.24, just ahead of U20 Dominic Smith-Fray, who secured maximum points in a PB of 23.32.

Building on her gold medal form at the County Championships, U23 Hannah Bell (below left) won both the Women's 100m (12.48) and 200m – clocking a PB of 25.81 in the latter, with Kyra Stone taking the B-string in both events in 12.91 and 26.69 both of which were PBs.

Under 17s Conor Kelly and Josh Martin were also in PB form, clocking 50.94 and 52.99 respectively to take full points in the 400m.

Such is the strength and depth of the men's distance squad that they are able to seamlessly share the race duties over the five League matches.

This time it was the turn of Dan Cliffe (above right) – fresh from pacing the men's 5,000m at the Watford Grand Prix the previous evening – to secure maximum points for the A string in the 3000m (in 8:45.64), backed up by Joe Croft who won for the B string in 8:56.82.

Dan was back in action in the 1500m, coming in in 4:11.14, behind Oli Carrington who kicked on to take the win in 4:09.51. Earlier he was second for the B-string in the 800m in 1:59.83, with Will Leslie coming home first for the A-string in 1:59.54.

In the Women's 5000m Matilde Lomba and Gina Galbraith (below) lunged across the finish line together in an identical time of 18:34.02. After a long photofinish deliberation the A-string win was awarded to Matilde by a mere hair's breadth.

Matilde also won the 1500m in 5:02.86, with Niamh Thompson taking the win for the B team in 5:20.64. Niamh also won the 1500m steeplechase in 5:36.88 right), with Lisa Thomas winning the B-string in 5:56.24, only a day after winning gold in the W55 400m and 2000m steeplechase at the BMAF Championships in Derby. Bettina Urlbauer underlined a good afternoon for the women's middle distance team, winning the 800m in 2:29.18 with U17 Ariana Shala second for the B-string in 2:38.35.

On the field, Club coach Mark Andrews was here there and everywhere as usual, picking up points across the events. U17 Josh Martin repeated his Match 1 win in the high jump, this time with a clearance of 1.73m, while in the Men's and Women's triple jumps, Pete McLeod and Lulu Weisz (who took on four events during the afternoon) were both victorious, jumping 12.09 and 9.64 respectively.

Full results

Thanks as always to Peter Arkell for many of the photographs

Below: the victorious 4 x 100m team of Devonte Casely-Hayford, Antonio Douglas, Freddie Arkell and Conor Kelly; and some of the squad relaxing after the match win.