Another frustrating weekend for the Harriers at Sportscity. The Club finished in fifth place just 16.5 points off a second place finish and 44 points from winning the Match. Nevertheless, as always with the Harriers, Team spirit was excellent, everyone got stuck in to try and compensate for missing athletes and produced some very good performances to boot.

Full Results HERE

The Team spirit was no more in evidence than in the performance of Paul Coffey. Having suffered great personal loss only two days before the fixture, Paul ran the ‘A’ 100m/200m double and the 4 x 100m Relay. In the 100m he equaled his PB of 11.2 – in the 200m he set a new PB of 22.7 before finishing off in the Relays. A fantastic effort by this young man under the most trying of circumstances.

Good to see Paul Bradshaw back in the squad and securing really good points competing in the ‘A’ 400m (2nd in 49.7) and ‘B’ 200m (2nd in 22.9) as well as 4 x 400m Relay Leg (49.2). Paul then went and tried his arm at the Javelin taking 3rd spot with 37.11m. Perhaps a new Javelin star in the making!!

In the ‘B’ 100m Dominic Bretherton ran 11.7. In the Women’s sprints Morgan Angland ran a new PB in the ‘A’ 100m (13.1) with Hayley Candler posting a 14.1 clocking in the ‘B’ 100m Race and 29.9 in the ‘B’ 200m. In the Women’s 200m ‘A’ Roxanne Oliver ran 27.7 equaling her PB. There was another PB for the in form Katie Buckingham in the ‘A’ 400m (62.3) and Phoebe Howe finishing 4th in the ‘B’ Race (65.3).

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Katie Buckingham’s Coach Richard Taylor predicted a new PB by four seconds in her 800m and that is exactly what she delivered with a 4th placed 2.22.9. U17 Olivia Wilson stepped in to help out the Team and took 3rd spot in the ‘B’ 800m with 2.41.1 – just over two seconds outside her PB but a really good effort considering she was running in the Senior League. U17 Women Grace Handley and Phoebe Howe then took on the 1500m with Grace running not far outside her PB for 3rd place in 4.55.6 and Phoebe Howe running 5.43.2 in the ‘B’ Race. Ben Fish took on the 1500m (3rd in 4.01.9) and the 5000m winning the  ‘A’ Race in 14.57.2 – Jack Hindle set a 12 second PB in the ‘B’ 1500m in 4th (4.23.4) and Chris Davies took on the 800m (6th in 2.14.1) and 5000m (3rd 17.46.8) double which was completely new territory for him.

And in the ‘B’ 800m U17 Huzaifa Hanif stepped foreward to support the team in his first ever outing amongst senior athletes to run just over a second outside of his 800m PB with with 2.15.6 and then ran a leg of the 4 x 400m Relay. In the 3000m ‘A’ Race Laura Hesketh set a new PB by six seconds in 4th place with 11.09.00 run entirely in the rain. Joseph Howe had a really good run in the 3000m S/C (3rd in 10.37.6) and his first time at the longer distance, usually doing the 2000m S/C. Allan Hartley, usually seen on the Roads and Fells came to help the Team and ran the ‘B’ S/C and took a really bad fall on a bend, but got up to finish in 2nd place (12.30.9) exemplifying the Team spirit of the day.

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SONY DSCU17 Rebecca Orrell seems to be setting new PB’s everytime she throws the Hammer this year and she did it again in the Women’s ‘A’ Hammer event on Sunday finishing 4th with 40.28m – nearly two metres improvement – and the first time she has broken 40m with the Senior 4kg weight. Megan Searson, back home from College in the USA for a period came and did the “B” Hammer and took third place with 22.16m. Rebecca took 5th place (24.66m) in the Discus and 6th in the Shot Putt ‘B’ (7.14m). Jack Vickery came back from College to compete for the Club finishing 3rd in the ‘A’ Hammer (39.54m) and 4th in the ‘B’ Discus (21.46m). V50 Tony Balko and still going strong, took 5th spot in the Shot Putt (9.35m), 4th in the Discus with 26.24m and 3rd in the ‘B’ Hammer (30.28m).

Great to have Rebecca Sullivan back after several months of illness and although she is not fully recovered, she came along to help the Team in some of the Field Events winning the ‘B’ High Jump (1.60m) and reaching 7.86m in the Shot Putt. U17 Olivia Wilson tackled the ‘B’ Discus and took 4th spot with 14.01m, a PB by half a metre. Polly Pearse won the Women’s ‘A’ High Jump and set a new PB by 2 cm of 1.60m. Brother Joe Pearse had a great day over the High Jump. With an existing PB of 1.93cm – just one cm below the English Schools qualifying standard – he won the competition in a new PB of 1.96cm before going on to have three attempts at 2.00m. U17’s Morgan Angland (4th in the ‘A’ with 4.89m) and Olivia Brooks 3rd in the ‘B’ with 4.64m took steady points for the Club in the Long Jump. Olivia then competed in the Triple Jump placing 3rd with 9.12m and Polly Pearse took 5th in the ‘A’ (9.26m).

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SONY DSCRoxanne Oliver took on the Hurdling duties in the 400m and 100m and placed 2nd in both ‘A’ events with 68.3sec in the 400mH and 17.3sec in the 100m H – again, sadly we didn’t have ‘B’ competitors to back this up.

In the Long Hurdles, the eagerly awaited clash between Oliver Aspden and Connor Makin didn’t materialise as there were separate ‘A’ and ‘B’ Races. Oliver was in good form winning the ‘A’ in 56.0sec equaling his PB set at Hull in Match One and Connor similarly winning the ‘B’ in 57.3. Oliver then won the ‘A’ 110mH in 16.4sec and Joe Pearse completed a good day for him winning the ‘B’ 100mH 17.5sec.

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Another U17 young athlete who had never competed against Senior athletes before, answered a last minute call to help out and did really well. Ross Liddle backed up ‘A’ competitor Ben Aspinall in the Triple Jump and Long Jump. Ben took 2nd in the Triple Jump with 12.59m 3rd in the Long Jump with 5.93m. Ross leapt to a new PB of 5.37m in the Long Jump in 4th place and then jumped 10.26m in the Triple Jump for another 4th place. Great effort all round by the Team.

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