On return to league 3 action, Kettering finished in 5th, just 1 point behind Telford and only 15 points behind 3rd place bromsgrove & redditch. 5th place felt less than the club deserved for some very good achievements.
In the sprints, there were track wins for Niamh Bailey & Ed Cherry in the a &b 200m races respectively while Ash & Ed both finished second in the 400m. There were also top 3 places in the sprint hurdles for Niamh, Jamie Milne & Pete Mills. The penultimate event on the track saw an u20 womens team run just outside the current club record to finish 2nd - a very pleasant surprise given there was no one available to run the 400m women's individual races.
In the middle distance, there were strong 800m wins for both Jess Gordon & Fran Ashworth with Jess's younger sister, Bethany, finished 2nd b in the 1500m. Performance of the day though was Jack hope's winning debut in the 2k steeplechase leading to a new club record by over 10 seconds (full details of the middle distance squad can be seen in the other report below).
In the field, success came early with a season best 2nd for Niamh & b win for Abigail Coleman in the women's long jump while there was also a b 2nd for Aidan Bailey in the men's triple. In the women's throws, both Niamh & Daisy Gilbert won the shot putt comps with throws of 9.44m before Daisy took 2nd in the hammer. Daisy's younger sister, Annie, making her midland league debut won the b in the hammer, javelin and finished a fine day with 3rd in the discus.
In the men's throw, there were top 3 places in the men's javelin for both Pete Mills & Aidan but the surprise of the day came v early on with Bradley Fox's in the men's hammer finishing 3rd on debut. This came before Bradley broke his own long jump record later in the day.
As the scoring shows league 3 will be v close this time round but with a few more athletes next time round, there is no reason why the club cannot retain its league 3 season this year.
Middle Distance report
On the first league outing of the year there were some outstanding early season performances and 2 club records broken from the Harriers squad.
Making his Steeplechase debut on his Birthday, Jack Hope ran magnificently in his first outing over the barriers to win the 2k steeplechase and set a New Club Record of 6:36.4, shaving over 10 seconds from the previous best. Jack made a tentative start and sat in behind Bromsgrove & Redditch Mark Appleton for the majority of the race honing his barrier & water jump technique, and looked full of confidence on the bell lap and surged ahead to win by 6 seconds, and show he definitely has a future in this event.
Other highlights saw the Harriers dominate the women’s 800m with solid wins in both A & B stream races, Jess Gordon on her first 800m of the season took the lead after 200m and dominated the race to win comfortably in 2:21.2, and Fran Ashworth similarly lead from gun to tape to cruise to victory in 2:23.0.
In the men’s 800m Harry Young ran well to finish 4th in a SB of 2:06.1 in the A stream race, and Edward Cannell recorded 4th place in the B string with 2:20.1
In the women’s 3k Claudia Nevett ran well to finish 3rd just outside her PB with 11:01.9, and the 1500m races saw Abigail Coleman & Beth Gordon in action with the former finishing in a fine 3rd with 5:06.9 in the A race, and Beth Gordon running well over her less preferred distance in the B race to finish 2nd with 5:18.3.
In the Men’s 5k, David Edwards ran well to finish 5th in the A race with 19:00.4, with Terry Hatter also finishing in 5th for the B race in 19:06.8, and in the men’s 1500 Ethan Mehmet recorded an 11 second PB to finish 5th in 4:35.9.
In the 4x400m relay the middle distance quartet of Abigail Coleman/ Fran Ashworth/ Beth Gordon/ Jess Gordon in an exciting race ran superbly to lead for the majority of the race and finish second just behind Cannock & Stafford to record 4:09.5 and were just outside the u20 club record.