The first Sports Hall fixture after the Christmas break saw thirty AVEAC young athletes make the journey up the M1 to the Queen’s Park Sports Centre, Chesterfield for the fourth match of the season. AVEAC scored 448.5 points and once again finished second to Chesterfield on 515; Derby were third on 226 with High Peak fourth on 105. AVEAC’s Under 11 Boy’s, Under 13 Boy’s and U11 Girl’s won their respective competitions ahead of Chesterfield. The home side had more athletes contest the U15 match than AVEAC which allowed them to pull away to secure their fourth victory overall and which will probably see them retain their league title going into the final two fixtures.
Under 11 Girls
AVEAC scored five victories in the U11 Girl’s match. Summer Biggs continued her excellent Sports Hall season with a joint first place in the 1 Lap sprint and then went on to break 2 metres for the first time in the Standing Long Jump with a leap of 2.04 to won that event as well; finishing 2nd to Summer was AVEAC’s Aimee Brackenbury. The 3 Lap race was won by Isla Douglas with Summer placing 3rd. Isobel Weller dominated the Speed Bounce to claim AVEAC’s fourth victory and the four girls then combined to won the 4 x 1 Lap Relay at the end of the afternoon. The rest of the squad, Suri Ghai, Katherine Turner, Ruby Arnold and Florence Protheroe although not getting in the top three nonetheless put together some good performances and contributed to the overall Under 11 Girl’s victory.
Under 11 Boys
For the third match in a row, Charlie Davies dominated proceedings in the Under 11 Boy’s competition. He recorded another trio of victories winning the 1 Lap and 3 Lap sprints and Standing Long Jump. Kyran Mc Crellis and Marcus Parsons-Loades were involved in a four way tie in the Speed Bounce with High Peak’s Charlie Hanshaw and Chesterfield’s Charlie Cottrell. Ethan Ray placed a good 2nd in the Hi Stepper while Joseph Brackenbury, Oscar Ashmore and Edan Brown performed well in the Standing Long Jump finishing just outside the top positions. The Boy’s also recorded a victory in the 1 Lap Relay.
Under 13 Girls
Madeleine Turner was AVEAC’s top points scorer in the Under 13 Girls match . She won the 6 Lap run in a closely contested affair to outdo Chesterfield’s Marianna Owen by three tenths of a second. She then went on to take 2nd place in the Standing Long Jump missing the top spot by 2 centimetres. There were two third place finishes by Erin Beresford in the Speed Bounce and Jasmine Shore in the Shot. These three were ably supported by Betsy Wilton and Ellie Ursell who competed across several events and were just outside the scoring positions.
Under 13 Boys
The five AVEAC Under 13 Boy’s in action put together an excellent set of performances to won their match ahead of Chesterfield by a margin of just over thirty points. Their first event of the afternoon, the 2 Lap sprint, saw a one, two, three finish for AVEAC with Corey Fisher, Joe Moss and Ryan Ghai finishing in that order. Riley Jones had a busy few hours winning the 6 Lap Run ahead of Corey and the Standing Long Jump ahead of Joe. Ryan was also to the fore in the Standing Long Jump placing third. Riley and Joe placed 2nd and 3rd in the Shot as well while in the Speed Bounce Alfie Ray finished 2nd and Sebastian Taylor 4th. With the top three sprinters on the day, it wasn’t surprising that the AVEAC relay team dominated the 4 x 2 Lap race winning by almost seven seconds.
Under 15 Girls
Isla Hiscocks and Isobelle Protheroe were or standard bearers in the Under 15 Girl’s competition. Isla, as has been the case in the two previous Sports Hall fixtures she has taking part in this season, scored highly with victories in the Standing Long Jump and Speed Bounce and almost completed a treble, when she was pipped on the line in the 2 Lap Sprint by Chesterfield’s Emme Devine. Isobelle also contested three events with her best performance coming in the Shot where she placed 2nd.
Under 15 Boys
Similarly to the Girls Under 15 match, AVEAC only had two athletes in action, Seb Banks and Jack Moss. Seb placed 1st in the 4 Lap Run, 2nd in the Speed Bounce and 3rd in the Standing Long Jump while Jack scored good points finishing 2nd in the Shot and 3rd in the 2 Lap sprint.
Following this fourth fixture, the Derbyshire selectors will meet soon to select a team for the East Midlands Regional Finals in Grantham in February. It is anticipated that quite a few of our young athletes will make the Derbyshire squad based on their performances so far this season.
England Combined Events Championships – Sheffield EIS, 7th & 8th January
Two of the Club’s senior athletes, Alice Robinson and Scott Ram competed at the England Combined Events Championships at the weekend and both did well putting together some fine performances.
Alice took part in the Pentathlon on Sunday and finished 17th overall with a new personal best score of 2349 points. She had an excellent Shot Put with a throw of 10.62m, a huge improvement on her previous best throw which stood at 9.74m. Her other scores were; 60m Hurdles -11.10 seconds, High Jump – 1.27m, Long Jump – 4.49m and 800m – 2:50:96. Run in conjunction with the National event was the Midland Championship and Alice’s final score earned her a silver medal at regional level.
Scott Ram contested the Men’s Heptathlon event run over the two days. He finished 14th overall in a large field of twenty nine competitors. His final score of 4652 points was marginally down on his recent personal best of 4718 points set at the South of England Championships just before Christmas. In the final event of the second day Scott set a personal best in the 1000 metres recording 2:42:08 an improvement of over two seconds during the same event last year. His other individual scores were; 60m – 7.29 seconds, Long Jump – 6.43m; High Jump – 1.71m; Shot – 11.28m; 60m Hurdles – 9.02 seconds and Pole Vault – 3.50m.
Derbyshire Cross Country Championships – Bulwell Park, Nottingham, 7th January
Fran Howett was the Club’s only participant in the Derbyshire Cross Country Championships last Saturday. Taking part in the Under 20 5000m, she ran a solid race to come home 8th best U20 finisher in a combined race with the U17 Women. Fran’s finishing time was 24 minutes exactly.
Acknowledgements
Words – Joe McColgan
Photos
Sports Hall – aveacathletics instagram page
England Athletics CE – Alice Robinson