Great start to our senior league campaign …
On Saturday 17th May, the club took a strong team to the first Senior league match of the season at Oxford. This year we are in a division of 8 clubs including ourselves. The host club is always strong in these events due to the travelling commitment of visiting clubs. So it was always going to be a race for second place, which in the end we achieved with some comfort.
There were many terrific performances from our younger athletes who are not phased by competing in senior competition, backed up by our senior athletes. In many events, both A and B strings, we finished in the top 3 which helped gain a high points tally for the team. The result was an excellent 2nd place, behind the host club Oxford City.
As ever, it was a great team effort, with several athletes picking up extra events to keep the score board ticking.
In the 100m, Marc Marsden won the A race in 11.1 seconds, backed up by Zac Stapleton and Lezhan Bromfield who were both just pipped into second place in the A and B 200m races by a tenth of a second. In the High Jump both Sam Lickerish and Jasper Roach jumped 1.80m, finishing second and first respectively. Sam backed this up by winning both the Pole Vault in 3.60m and the Long Jump in 6.68m. Harry Flowers jumped 11.63m in the triple jump, just losing first place by 3cms, and was well supported by Olly Tallack who won the B string in 10.51m. Masters athlete Ray McKenna did all four throwing events for the club, ably supported in the Discus and Javelin by Sam Palmer, to gain valuable points for the team. The 4x100m relay team were victorious in 45.4 seconds.
In the Women’s events, young Olivia Walsh made her debut in senior competition by finished third in the A 100m race and winning the B race, while Isabelle Smith showed her good form over 400m by winning the A race in 59.1 secs. In the middle-distance events, all our women finished either first or second to gain a large haul of points, with the pick of the bunch Kirsten Hayes and Ashleigh Walters who both won their 3000m races. With our regular jumpers missing, it was up to Steph Longden and Veroncia Chen to pick up points for the club. Similarly in the throws, Megan Exley and Erin Searing picked up valuable points, with both finishing second in their Discus events. Both women’s 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams finished in second place.
Every athlete contributed to this result … big shout out to Kirsten Hayes who doubled up in 1500m and 3000m; Megan Exley who did 200m, Shotput, Discus, and both relays; Dan Wood and Emily Gates who stepped up in the 400m, 800m and relay; Sam Lickerish who excelled in high jump, long jump and pole vault and Marc Marsden who blitzed the 100m and anchored the winning 4X100m relay.
The next match is our local one at Milton Keynes on June 22, so we hope for a good turn out of athletes to consolidate our position in the league table. Would all athletes please inform Mark Exley and their coaches of their availability.
The club finished second behind Oxford with 349 points. Even at this early stage it looks like it might be a four-horse race to the finish with Oxford, Momentum (London club) and Milton Keynes.
Full results can be found here: Results
https://www.southernathletics.org.uk/assets/files/results/2025/25sal3w1oxford.htm
