Written by Cathy A
K&P take second place in Upper Age Group YDL second match
K&P’s U17/U20 team posted a very impressive second place in the Youth Development League Southern Division North League 2 on Sunday June 1st at the David Weir Arena in Sutton. It was a beautiful sunny day, warm and with only a light breeze, so excellent conditions for performances across all disciplines.
Despite half term and looming exams, K&P was able to field a significantly bigger team than at the previous match in April and this was the bedrock of our improvement from 4th place to 2nd. A serious injury to one of our opponents’ hurdlers (who we hope makes a full and speedy recovery) in only the second race of the day resulted in a rejigging of the track schedule which was not kind to many of the athletes. However everyone rose to this challenge splendidly and there were excellent performances across the piece. This was very necessary because, as in the previous match, the level of competition was strong across all the events on both the track and in the field.
The match result is shown in the table.
Team
Points
League Points
1 South Bucks
791.5
8
2 K&P
540
7
3 Thames Valley Harriers
523
6
4 St Albans
513
5
5 Guildford & Godalming
489.5
4
6 Sutton & District/Walton
400
3
7 Vale of Aylesbury
325
2
8 Team Hounslow & St. Mary’s
246
1
After 2 matches, South Bucks have pulled away little but K&P are leading the chasing pack. League standings are shown below:
Team
Total League Points after 2 matches
1 South Bucks
16
2 K&P
12
3= St Albans
11
3= Guildford & Godalming
11
5 Thames Valley Harriers
10
6 Sutton & District/Walton
6
7 Vale of Aylesbury
4
8 Team Hounslow & St. Mary’s
2
The stand-out performance of the day was in the U17W Hammer, where Jody Edwards threw an AAA grade 2 and an English Schools National Standard of 40.07m in a fantastic competition with Sophie Mace of Walton who threw a new Surrey age-group record. Not to be left out of the hammerfest, Isabelle Dodd won the U20W 4kg Hammer with a throw of 28.62m despite being only U17 and so used to throwing the lighter 3kg hammer. Jody backed up her terrific hammer performance with second place in the U17W Shot with an English Schools Entry Standard 10.53m and third place in the U17W Discus with an AAA grade 4 throw.
With the county schools championships taking place in a couple of weeks, many of our athletes were hoping to achieve English Schools Entry Standard performances. Aside from Jody, those successful were Mae Thompson and Nicole Kendall in the U20W 200m, Laura Darcey in the U17W High Jump and Caitlin Dimbleby in U17W Pole Vault. In addition, Alex Mackintosh (U20M High Jump), Alex Parkinson (U17M 100mH), Nicole Kendall (U20W 400m), Vanessa Saunders (U20W 100mH), Phoebe Callaghan-Mills (U20W High Jump), Laura Darcey (U17W 300H) and Jody Edwards (U17W Discus) all achieved county schools standards.
In all, our athletes posted 26 personal best performances, showing the effort and achievement of everyone who came to compete. It was also nice to see athletes returning from injury and absence from competition, and some new faces competing for the first time in the Kingston team vest. We hope they all enjoyed the day and will want to compete again. Our next match is at Kingsmeadow on June 29th.
The team was:
U17 Women: Ellie Arnfield, Laura Darcey, Caitlin Dimbleby, Isabelle Dodd, Jody Edwards, Lucie Fletcher, Nina Gibbins, Petra Köne, Louisa Martin, Ella Norman, Fehinti Ogungbesan, Tilly Toseland
U20 Women: Phoebe Callaghan-Mills, Laura Cook, Nicole Kendall, Bryony Ross, Vanessa Saunders, Mae & Layla Thompson
U17 Men: Souleyman Bah, Chris Cecil, William Gwynne, Joshua Hall, Leon Newell, Nick Osman, Alex Parkinson, Oscar Tyrell
U20 Men: Aidan Fahey, Rory McCann, Max Perez-Diaz, Samuel Vassall
Many thanks also go to Maurice Joyce (timekeeper), Susanne Dietrich, Neil Osman, Ros Parkinson, Julie Darcey, Jane Newell and Gill Broderick (all field) for officiating and ensuring we got a full 35 points for this.
Team managers: Frank Schubert & Cathy Arnfield
