Nene Valley Harriers have one hand on the Southern Athletics League Division One title after winning a top-of-the-table clash at Crawley.
The Harriers went into the fixture top of the league, but were facing Blackheath & Bromley Harriers and Dartford Harriers – placed second and third in the league respectively – as well as hosts Crawley AC, themselves not far off the pace.
The very first track event suggested that this was going to be a tough days work, with all teams fielding A and B string athletes in the ladies’ 400m hurdles.
Nene Valley’s Rosie Jacobs and Claire Smith claimed third places, with Smith breaking the club record in the process.
This was the start of the day’s personal bests (PB), with record performances for athletes all over the place.
The men’s version of the event set the foundation for the day with both Sean Reidy and David Bush winning to put NVH and Blackheath ahead in the fixture.
Rosie Fresen was unlucky not to continue her winning streak when pipped on countback in the pole vault, while new member Cipriano Miranda started to demonstrate the spring he had with a good third place – allowing Gregorij Kondratovic to win the B string.
Kondratovic added a pole vault win to his record later on and Miranda later won the triple jump with an impressive 13.46m leap.
Meanwhile, the Nene Valley ladies field eventers started an unbelievable day.
Andrea Jenkins, Lydia Church and Kelly Lawrence continued their fine form by winning the hammer and then Becky Hall and Ellie Mae Stokes joined in with shot putt and javelin wins respectively.
Indeed, those five ladies won all of the throwing events on the day.
The jumpers, however, did not wish to be outplayed with Emily Maltby and Stokes winning both horizontal jumps, while Maltby added the B string high jump and Fresen and Jacobs added points.
The ladies won all but two of their field events.
Not done there, Maltby added a 100m sprint and sprint relay to her tally of wins, as well as a second place in the A string hurdles.
The men similarly added a great haul of points in the field with wins and second places in all but three competitions.
The throwers had a hard day, with some very tough competition showing why these three teams were all at the top of the table.
Simon Achurch recorded two wins and a second, while Martin Tinkler, with two second places in the shot putt, gave him a top three man-of-the-match finish.
In the short sprints, Gideon Okoh and Callum Crosby won the 100m, while Gideon was pipped in the 200m and David Brown won the B string.
James McCrae took both middle distance wins with Ollie Bowling also winning the 800m B string and adding a second place in the steeplechase.
The team spirit was shown at the end of the match during the relays, the support was a fifth team member and saw the men take both the 100m and 400m relays.
The ladies added the 100m relay, but one exceptional leg by Yimika Adewakum for Blackheath left NVH in second place.
Overall, this was the first time Nene Valley’s men have outscored the women in recent memory, although Emily Maltby top scored with 19 points from five events.
Reidy and Achurch (11 points) were the top scoring men ahead of Martin Tinkler (10).
It was a great day for the club and means that as long as they avoid a last place in the final fixture on August 20 at Southampton then they will win the league for the second time in three years.
Match result: 1st Nene Valley Harriers 243pts; 2nd Blackheath & Bromley 223pts; 3rd Crawley AC 157pts; 4th Dartford Harriers 147pts.
