Sunday 16th of June saw the Harriers Young Athletes travel to their second Heart of England League match in Derby with the promise of improvement from the previous match where a depleted team finished an overall 6th position. This promise of an improvement proved a reality with Kettering posting their season best points score to finish a credible 5th position in the division 1 match against some much larger clubs. Team spirit was high amongst the athletes and this spirit helped the athletes of the team post some very credible performances.
Throughout the day there was a total of 5 wins in the events for the club with the first coming from Emily Williams in the U13G 800m. Emily ran a perfectly timed race to take lead in the last 120m of the race stretching away from the rest of the field to post a time (2:34.1) just outside of her best, the time was still a Grade 3 performance. The second winner for the Harriers was Declan Harber in the B String U15 Male Long Jump. Declan managed to leap the exact distance of his PB (4.80) to win the B String by well over 40cm!
Standout performer of the day was newly joined harrier Tyrese Parris-Smith. Tyrese gained 3 personal bests on the day, one of which contributed to the overall winner total for the Harriers. In the hurdles Tyrese put on a exceptional display to win the race by nearly a second in a Grade 4 time of 12.9 seconds in. He backed up this performance with PBs in the Long Jump (5.03) and High Jump (1.55m). Another athlete who laid down some great performances was U17 Female Abi Coleman. She convincingly won the 800m in a time fractionally outside her best performance (2:25.9) as well as jumping well in the Long Jump recording a PB by 75cm to finish 3rd with a jump of 4.85m with the potential to jump a lot further. The final winner of the day for the Harriers was Matt Brookes in the U17m 1500m. He convincingly won the B string 1500m by nearly 1 minute.
Some other standout performances from the day were; Edward Cannell’s 1500m run which was a PB by 5 seconds (4:49.6), Ella Palmer’s 75 hurdles run where she finished 5th in a PB time of 13.2 and Jack Reed’s 100m where he ran a PB of 12.6. Millie Eve and Erin Healy both doubled up in the sprints to both post very credible times in some fast races. Lewis Morgan Barton also had a good day at the office with a personal best in the HJ (1.30m) and the 100m (14.3). A final mention to U13 Girls 4x100 Relay team who ran an extremely good race to come second on the line, with Erin Healy dipping out 3rd place both recording 58.8.
Big thanks goes out to all of the athletes, officials, helpers and all the supporters that came along to watch last Sunday. The next and final league match is on Saturday 31st of August at Tamworth. Harriers are now joint 5th Overall with Banbury following the first two meetings and a strong performance at Tamworth will guarantee top flight competition for 2014.
Full results are on the Fixtures & Results page.
Bradley Fox
KTH Press Officer