Second home match gives TVH first SAL win of the season

Having finished just a point away from winning the last home Southern League match in June, the Valley men and women made sure of maximum points by winning the second home match by 22 points in the fourth Southern League match of the season at Linford Christie Stadium on Saturday.

In an impressive team performance the final match scores placed TVH first on 207.5 points, Radley 2nd on 185.5 points, Southampton 3rd on 168.5 points and City of Norwich 4th on 153.5 points.

The match statistics make impressive reading with the men and women both fielding strong teams of 27 and 20 athletes respectively, with the men posting 7 wins and the women an incredible 23 wins on the day.

As in previous matches there were also new athletes joining the team, with 5 men and 3 women making their Southern League debut for TVH.

With such a good team performance there were a number of possible choices for the TVH Man of the Match and Woman of the Match awards, with the final winners being Jason Comissiong for his wins in the 100m and 4x100m relay plus 2nd place in the 110m hurdles, and Lucy Ferguson for wins in the 100m hurdles, 400m hurdles and both the 4x100m and 4x400m relays.

A special mention and congratulations must also go to Angela Barrett and Julia Ratcliffe for 2 outstanding personal best performances, as Angela’s triple jump of 13.19m was both a TVH and SAL League record, and Julia’s hammer throw of 70.75m on her Southern League debut was a TVH, SAL League and New Zealand National record!

Not surprisingly Julia’s throw also won her the Sweatshop Woman of the Match title for the best overall performance on the day.

Saturday’s first win of the season has given TVH an important 4 league points which has moved the Valley up to 9th place in Division 1 on 10 points, however 3 of the closest teams which are only 1 or 2 points behind the Valley will be competing in the final match of the season at Tonbridge.

So it’s important that we get out a strong team and get a good result in the final match of the season at Tonbridge on Saturday August 20th, don’t miss it!

Women’s Match Report

by Amber Simukonda

With a total of 23 wins on the day, TVH ladies had a fantastic SAL competition on Saturday.

Julia Ratcliffe set the team off on the field by throwing a huge PB of 70.75m in the hammer – a New Zealand National Record, TVH Club Record & SAL League Record.

Danielle Opara followed that winning streak with wins in the B string hammer, A string shot putt, B string javelin & A string discus.

Following on from those wins, we had more wins from Abigail Moronkeji (B string shot putt), Olga Kotmilosi (A string javelin) and Laura Britane (A string discus) – a clean sweep in all the throws events! Amazing throwing from all 5 athletes.

In the jumps, it was a welcome return back from a wrist injury for Aeysha Robinson who performed well to win the A string pole vault.

Our other jumpers followed suit and we had a long awaited PB from Angela Barrett (13.19m) in the triple jump – a new SAL League Record and TVH Club Record. Angela also won the long jump and B string high jump.

Philippa Rogan making her TVH debut in the Southern League jumped 1.75m to win the A string high jump.

On the track, we had wins in the 100m from Venus Benjamin-Maclean, 400m B string from Sarada Nag, 1500m B string from Verity Walker, 5000m A & B string wins from Lisa Da Silva and Anna Critchlow and 1500m steeplechase from Alice Harray.

Wins in the A string 100mH & 400mH and both relays for Lucy Ferguson made her the winner of the TVH woman of the match award.

We also had good performances from Jaye Haley making her Southern League debut with a 200m PB (26.6), Sherique Ruddock (100m, 200m), Amelia Casey (400m, 800m), Sarah Johnson (1500m) and Diana Kennedy showing that every point makes a massive difference by competing in the long jump, 400mH and 800m.

The wins continued throughout the day and we carried this onto the relays. The 4x100m squad made up of Sherique, Jaye, Sharni Raymond & Lucy brought the baton home miles ahead of the second placed team.

In the 4x400m, the squad made up of Lucy, Jaye (running her first ever 400m on the track), Sarada and Angela ended the day on a high with another convincing win.

With our last match in Tonbridge on 20 August, we need to carry this winning streak over to Tonbridge to see ourselves safely back in Division 1 again next season. Get in touch if you would like to compete.

#UpTheValley.

Men’s Match Report

by Phil Wetton

It was a day of warm weather and windy conditions for the second home match and 4th match of the Southern League season at LCS on Saturday.

In another good turnout the TVH men fielded a 27 man team which included 5 men on their Southern League debut, sprinters Chaka Maillet, Lumar Sylvester and Malchi Boyce along with middle distance athletes Calum Nicol and Andrew Walshe, with Andrew also making his debut in a TVH vest.

With some athletes away on holiday there were 7 wins for the men’s team on the day, 3 on the track and 4 on the field, along with a good number of 8 pb’s.

The Valley’s own club Man of the Match award for the overall best performance on the day was won by sprinter Jason Comissiong for his win in the A string 100m in 11.6s, final leg in the winning 4x100m relay team and 2nd place in the A string 110m hurdles in 16.0s, which win him the trophy and voucher, well done Jason!

Once again the Valley men looked set to match their performance in the first home match by covering all the events on the day, but unfortunately a traffic incident had caused a number of roads to be closed and Michael Adekunle couldn’t make the start of the high jump competition and had to sit it out.

With a strong headwind prevailing in the home straight throughout the match it was never going to be a great day for sprinting and the slower times all reflected this.

First event on the track was the 400m hurdles and in his first Southern League match of the season junior U20 decathlete Danny Burrowes had a very good race to finish 3rd in the A race in a new pb time of 59.7s, with Caspar Donnison unable to maintain a good rhythm he still secured good points with a 2nd place finish in the B race in 64.4s.

The sprints got off to a winning start, with a win on the line in the 100m A race for Jason Comissiong as he was given the same time as the 2nd placed athlete, 11.6s, and while junior U20 athlete Kamal Mitchell would have been the favourite to win the B race an over-eager start was recorded as a false start and unfortunately he had to withdraw from the race.

Kamal was determined to make up for this in the 200m A race and in a close race he finished in 2nd place in a time of 22.7s, while Chaka Maillet made his long overdue SAL debut in the B race with a time of 24.2s for 3rd place.

In the non-scoring sprint races Daniel John made his first appearance of the SAL season in the 100m with a time of 12.1 and Jehvaun Senior ran a very strong race to win the 200m in a season’s best time of 22.8s.

Having raced in the 400m hurdles only 50 minutes earlier Caspar Donnison found it tough going in the 400m and finished 4th in the A race in 57.3s, and another Valley athlete making his long overdue SAL debut, Lumar Sylvester, took 3rd place in the B race in a time of 56.1s, with injury having curtailed his previous seasons if all goes well Lumar can soon get back to his best form.

Jason Comissiong continues to improve in the 110m hurdles and a time of 16.0s gave him 2nd place and good points in the A race, while TVH team manager Manuel Da Silva stepped in to the B race for his first SAL appearance of the season and a 4th place finish in 24.2s.

Botond Safar found himself in a fast 800m and his time of 2m05.2s saw him come home in 4th place in the A race, and with most of the field just slightly ahead U17 junior athlete Lucillo Burrell had to run his own race for 3rd place in the B race in 2m10.2s.

Keen to improve his pb Botond doubled up in the 1500m and was only a couple of seconds off his pb with a time of 4m23.1s in a close finish for 3rd place in the A race, as did James Ellis who had earlier raced in the 3000m and still had enough left in the tank for 2nd place in the B race and was pleased to record a good new pb time of 4m25.7s.

Another good addition to the team making his debut in a TVH vest but only able to race as a non-scoring athlete on the day was Andrew Walshe, who showed good form despite the windy conditions to win the 800m in a time of 1m57.0s, a sign of more good times to come.

This time around it was a 3000m steeplechase for the men and it proved to be one of the top points scorers for the Valley men, with both Calum Nicol and Paul Woodgate doubling-up after already racing earlier in the 3000m they both put on great performances as Calum finally made his SAL debut in 2nd place in the A race in 11m56.1s, and Paul had one of his best ever races to win the B race in a new pb of 13m21.7s.

In the 3000m James Ellis was once again on good form to record another pb time of 9m09.6s for 2nd place in the A race and Fahad Abdi once more went below 10 minutes with a time of 9m55.9s for 4th place in the B race.

There was also a healthy group of 4 TVH men in the non-scoring 3000m race, with Calum Nicol leading them home in 10m06.4s, closely followed by Steve Norris in 10m09.0s, then Greg Bennett making his first SAL appearance of the season to record a new pb of 10m28.1s, and Paul Woodgate coming home in a time of 11m05.3s.

Having recorded 2 wins and a 2nd place in the first 3 matches of this season the Valley’s 4x100m team once again put on a strong show with 2 relay teams racing on the day, with the A team of Chaka, U17 junior Malachi Boyce on his SAL debut, Jehvaun and Jason it was another win for the TVH men in a time of 43.6s, while the non-scoring team of Daniel, Kamal, Lumar and triple jumper Steve Edwards recorded a time of 44.5s for 4th place.

With just the 4x400m relay to go on the track Jehvaun once again stepped-up to do back-to-back relays and was joined by Botond, Caspar and Richard Solomon for a close 3rd place finish in a time of 3m35.7s.

In the field events Ali Mortimore was joined by U20 decathlete Danny Burrowes for most of the heavy throws, and with Danny back on the team after his university exams they both produced a number of personal best and season’s best throws to gain a good number of points for the Valley men.

Beginning in the shot putt Ali threw a season’s best of 11.79m for 3rd place in the A string and Danny produced a pb throw of 9.63m for 2nd place in the B string.

In the discus another season’s best throw of 32.77m gave Ali 3rd place in the A string and in his 4th event of the day Danny recorded his 3rd pb with a throw of 25.20m to take 3rd place in a close B string competition.

The hammer was the only one of the heavy throws which Danny missed out due to it not being a decathlon event, so Caspar Donnison tried his luck alongside Ali, which saw Ali throw another season’s best of 36.05m to win the A string by almost 3m and Caspar just edged 3rd place in the B string with a final round throw of 15.01m.

Throwing in the javelin Dawid Jerzykowski is always guaranteed to score good points despite still not throwing at his best and his throw of 45.07m put him in 2nd place in the A string, while Richard Solomon once again earned good points to finish a clear 2nd place in the B string with a throw of 36.05m.

In the pole vault it was good to see Stan Vilga back on good form with a season’s best jump of 3.70m for a good 2nd place in the A string, and Danny Burrowes continued his very busy day with a 2.55m jump, just 5cm short of his best, for 2nd place in the B string.

In the high jump junior U17 athlete Toni Ademuwagun has been performing consistently well this season and he once again produced a very good jump of 1.85m to tie first place on countback in the A string competition, and Michael Adekunle would have been favourite to make it maximum points for both jumpers but was unlucky to miss the start of the competition after getting held-up in traffic.

In the long jump both Richard Solomon and junior U20 athlete Odell Okwuosa both jumped well to take 2nd place in the A and B strings respectively, with Richard recording a very good 6.37m pb and Odell getting close to 6m with a jump of 5.91m, just 4cm short of the B string winning jump.

The triple jump proved to be the best event of the day for the Valley men as they scored maximum points, with the return of Steve Edwards to the team on the A string and Odell on the B string, they both recorded clear winning jumps of 13.40m and 12.66m respectively.

As the final match scores were announced it was a clear win for the Valley as the team finished on 207.5 points with a winning margin of 22 points ahead of Radley in 2nd place.

With the first match win of the season comes the first 4 league points of the season, which when added to the Valley’s league total moves TVH up to 9th place in the league on 10 league points.

However for the final match of the season at Tonbridge on Saturday August 20th, TVH will be up against Tonbridge, Basingstoke & Mid Hants and Colchester Harriers, with only 2 points between all 4 teams.

So it’s important to get out a strong team to ensure we maintain our place in Division 1 for next season.

We now have the first win of the season so put Saturday August 20th in the diary and make sure we finish the season on a high!

Up The Valley!

SAL Division 1, Match 4, LCS West London, 09-07-16, Results

SAL Division 1, League Table at 09-07-16 after 4 Matches