The 2nd Round of Division 2WC in the Northern League took place in Bury on June 9th on a warm and sunny day. Blackburn were coming off a first round win on home territory in May and hoping to consolidate their position with another win, to stay on top of the Division and push on to the promotion match.
Full Results HERE:
The outcome of the match was another win and anchored by a great run by the Women’s 4 x 400m Relay Team. A tremendous run by Katie Buckingham on the first leg set up Phoebe Howe who came under immediate attack, but wouldn’t give in and passed over to Polly Pearse on Leg 3 with a slight lead. Polly got hauled back, but in the home straight she proved too strong, holding off the opposition to hand over to Rachel Leech on Leg 4. With the Blackburn and Bury Teams and supporters ‘going mental’ Rachel held off Alana Grundy from Bury by just 0. 9 of a second to round off a great day and win for the Club.
But the win wasn’t just about one event – with 20 wins & 18 second places, and 12 personal and seasons bests, the squad showed that it is pretty good nick.
U17 Jake Almond in his first senior fixture came 3rd in the 100m in a PB of 23.6sec; Ben Aspinall, another U17 enjoying really good form and progress recorded a new PB of 12.68m to win the ‘A’ Triple Jump and then went on to PB in the Pole Vault with 2.30m; Joe Pearse who has been working really hard to get out off the 1.86m mark, hit the heights with a new PB in the High Jump of 1.90m and then went on to PB in the Pole Vault with 2.90m – and in amongst the youngsters was another good performance from Phil Hall – a V50 – who ran a fine race to take 2nd pace in the ‘A’ 1500m in a season’s best time of 4:24.8sec. Connor Mahoney 2nd in the ‘B’ 800m ran a season’s best of 2:05.2 and Joseph Howe also took 2nd place in the ‘B’ 1500m with 4:33.4.
Paul Coffey with 2nd in the 100m (11.6sec) and 3rd in the 200m (24.3) – Jack Lonsdale 5th in the 800m (55.5) – Chris Barnes 3rd in the ‘A’ 3000m Steeple Chase (10:54.7) – debutant Chris Davies in the ‘B’ Chase 2nd (11:38.2) – Kieran Monaghan 2nd ‘B’ 400m Hurdles (64.0) along with Corie Shorrock who may reconsider his thoughts about taking up high hurdling all helped to build a substantial points total for the Club.
Karl Billington and Shaun Livesey took on the 5000m and both ran excellent tactical races resulting in an ‘A’ Race win for Karl (15:39.8) holding off Matthew Pearson from Holmfirth and Shaun Livesey taking 2nd in the ‘B’ Race with 16:53.8.
Oliver Aspden had a really good day with three individual wins – the ‘A’ 110m Hurdles (18.0 (SB); ‘A’ 400m Hurdles (59.7) and ‘B’ Triple Jump (10.96m). Jack Vickery 3rd in the ‘A’ Hammer ( 41.36m) & 2nd in the ‘B’ Discus (22.38m) – Lewis Taylor 1st in the ‘B’ Hammer (40.41m) – Tony Balko 3rd in the ‘A’ Discus (27.05) & 2nd ‘A’ Shot Putt 9.59m and in the last Men’s Throws event of the day Shanteep Sivarajah 2nd in the ‘A’ Javelin (47.98m) and Joe Pearse 2nd in the ‘B’ Javelin (34.72m) evidenced another good all round performance by the Men’s Throwers.
The Women’s Throws athletes also had a really good day. Rebecca Orrell came 2nd in the ‘A’ Hammer 35.09m & 1st in the ‘B’ Discus (27/08m) – Sarah Henton won the ‘A’ Discus with 47.81m, won the ‘B’ Hammer (31.58m), and completed another hat trick of wins on the day for a Blackburn athlete in the Shot Putt with a season’s best of 10.46m and then capped it off with 2nd in the ‘A’ Javelin (26.34m).
On the Track, the ever present Abby Edmundson ran three SB’s in the 100m ‘B’ (13.70) – 100m Hurdles – 2nd (17.4) and a win in the ‘A’ Long Jump (5.20m). Katie Buckingham, is going from strength to strength with PB’s in the ‘B’ 200m (27.9) and ‘A’ 800m 3rd (2:27.6). Polly Pearse is another young athlete who gets better all the time, winning the ‘B’ 100m Hurdles (17.4) the ‘A’ High Jump (1.50m) and 2nd in the ‘A’ Pole Vault (2.20m). Rachel Leech is growing in consistency and performance – she placed 2nd in the ‘A’ 200m (27.4) won the ‘A’ 400m with a PB of 61.7. New debutants for the Club were 2nd claim athletes Sarah Ridehalgh and Laura Hesketh and both performed really well in the 3000m – Sarah taking 3rd in the ‘A’ Race (11:00.4) and Laura 2nd in the ‘B’ Race (11:15.5) who then went onto to run the ‘A’ 1500m – 4th (5:21.9). Phoebe Howe ran really solidly with a 4th in the 400m ‘B’ and 3rd in the ‘B’ 800m and backed those up with a cracking second leg in the 4 x 400m Relay. Sophie Taylor contested the ‘A’ 100m (14.2), came 2nd in the ‘B’ 400m Hurdles and 4th in the ‘B’ High Jump. Shelley Tattersall ran a PB in the ‘B’ 1500m (5:25.3).
