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The National Junior League 2010 got underway for Southampton AC on Sunday 25th April at the Mountbatten Centre, Portsmouth. Competing against Basingstoke/Andover, Bournemouth/Poole, Brighton, Chichester, Portsmouth, Havant/Isle of Wight and the Sharks, the team was keen to make a good start to the season, hoping to put themselves in a good position and stand a chance of qualifying for the promotion finals in August.
Brighton took an early lead in the match and was soon in an unassailable position. Initially the battle for second place between Southampton AC and the composite Havant/Isle of Wight team was close but ultimately we managed to pull away from them and secured second position with a margin of almost 100 points.
As usual, it was a great team performance with the U20 and U17 athletes keen to post good times and distances on, what was for many, their first outing of the season. Several athletes made their debut for the NJAL team including Becki Kidson (100m), Hannah Musker (200m), Millie Clifford (400m hurdles), Poppy Barker (javelin), Anna-Sara Tingman (triple and long jump), Ben Winstanley (200m and 400m), Calum Bressington (long jump, 100m and 200m), Amarpal Gill (3k), Paul Warn (3k), Justin Hunt (long jump, triple jump, 110m hurdles, javelin and 2k steeplechase), Ross Barker (triple jump), Calum Rowe (400m hurdles), Luke Hodgetts (pole vault) and Fred Young (hammer, discus and shot).
Notable performances included personal best times or distances for Hannah Musker who ran 200m in 27.4, Vicki Vinter who jumped 4.79m in long jump, Amarpal Gill and Paul Warn in the 3k who ran 11:00.1 and 11:29.1 respectively, Luke Hodgetts who cleared 3.20m in pole vault and Matt Watson who jumped 2.00m in the high jump to win the event. Elsewhere, Mhair-Clair Stewart and Liberty Pritchard made a good team in the 3k race, Jenny Beckingham ran well to win both the 800m and 1500m ÔAÕ races, Millie Clifford won the ÔAÕ 400m hurdles in a time of 64.7 and Anna Stevens won the ÔAÕ shot with a distance of 9.76m. For the men there were victories in the ÔBÕ 400m from David Bolton in a time of 52.8, in the ÔBÕ 1500m from Aaron Bennett who ran the event in 2:00.8 and Fred Young threw the discus 41.80m to win the ÔAÕstring. The men also had a clean sweep of the relays, winning the 4 x 100m in a time of 46.0 (Sam Derham, Calum Bressington, Matt Watson and Ben Winstanley) and the 4 x 400m in a time of 3:31.2 (David Bolton, Harry Fisher, Ben Winstanley and Simon Ninnim).
Our next match is on Sunday 23 May when the team travels to Eastbourne, looking to improve its performance and hopefully consolidate its position in the Itchen Division.
Report by Susan Stevens
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