The seniors and under-15s of West Suffolk Athletic Club, travelled to Perivale Park, Ealing, for the second time in a month, to contest the third fixture of the season in the Southern Womens League on Sunday.
They had won their first two matches, but this, against first and fourth in the league, and the home team Ealing, was never going to be easy.
Despite being a little low on numbers in some areas, those present worked hard and took a close second p
lace, just 14 points behind Tonbridge.
West Suffolk were narrowly ahead of Ealing, with Haywards Heath fourth. This drops WSAC one place down the table to third, with Ipswich Harriers moving ahead into second position.
Athlete-of-the-match was Tania Spurling. Despite taking part in the England Athletics Under 23 Championships the following day, Tania competed in three different events, late in the day, all of which she won convincingly. High jump and javelin were contested at opposite ends of the arena, with the triple jump somewhere in between. Earlier, she had also won the hurdles and long jump to take her personal points tally for the day to 20.
Montana Jackson also had good reasons to be cheerful, winning the B string triple jump with 11.77 metres, moving her up to third in the UK rankings.
Emily Cross won the under-17 hurdles with a new personal best, and there were also pbs for Emily Rogers in 100 metres and Abi Marriott in 400m hurdles.
Other senior winners were Emily Rogers in 200m and Emily Cross in B string javelin. Grace Waters started what proved to be a very good weekend when she set a new pb in 800 metres.
The best result of the day for the under-15s, came in high jump in which Chelsea Wade improved her pb to 1.53 metres in winning the A string and Ellie Dewild equalled her pb with 1.50 to take B string.
Leah Mapston and Lizzie Hannaford both set pbs in 100 and 200 metres. Leah won both and Lizzie was second in 100m and first in 200m in the B string.
Leah completed a good day with her third pb in hurdles. Chelsea and Beth Wade took double first in shot put and Beth won the discus. There were no further winners but Sam Carson, in 800 metres, and Ellie Dewild in long jump, both set new pbs.
On Sunday, the youngsters travelled to Sandy for an Eastern Young Athletes League match. They took a very creditable third place, behind St Albans and Enfield but ahead of Ipswich, who finished fourth.
It was an impressive day for Grace Waters. Following on from Saturday, she contested the 100, 200 and 300 metres, winning B string in both 200m and 300m, setting new personal best times in all three. Until now this had been a frustrating season for Grace, but for these excellent performances she won the athlete-of-the-match award.
Montana Jackson also set a pb in winning the 300 metres A string, as did Emily Rogers as she won a tightly-contested A string 200m in 26.5 secs. Montana won the triple jump and also took double first, with Emily Rogers in long jump.
It was the same result in discus for Sam Milner and Emily Cross, Sam also winning hammer and shot while Emily Cross won the javelin.
