SAL Match 3 Report – Guildford

Hosts Club Guildford & Goldaming took first place with 261pts, Swindon Harriers placed 2^nd with 256pts, Walton AC in 3^rd with 250pts, Newbury came 4^th with 200pts, and the final places going to Ashford AC [5^th 189pts] and Ealing, Southall & Middlesex [6^th 167pts].

Starting off with our Ladies, a great performance from a team which has remained relatively unchanged since the first match of the season! Club multi-eventer Oluwatobi Aderoju picked up 12pts and was the ladies top scorer, followed closely by SAL debutant Chiamaka Brown who picked up 10pts with a 3^rd Place PB in the High Jump [1.50m], a PB victory in the B String Javelin [a 27.56m throw with a heavier implement!] and a successful leg 2 of the 4x100m relay team which placed 6^th. We also had two other victories for the ladies, congratulations Lucy Loades [Discus A String 26.98m] and Layla Drury [Triple Jump B string 9.26m].

Our Men’s team were a real Tour de Force! 11 Individual victories, a team win with the Men’s 4x400m Relay Squad, and a Club U20 Record in the 4x100m Relay with the team placing 2^nd! Both Sam Mace and Brook Cronin dominated in their events picking up 15pts apiece; with 3 wins in the Shot, Discus, Hammer, 100m, 200m, and 4x400m respectively! There were also a 15pt and 14pt haul from our multi-event extraordinaire’s Robert A Smith and Martin Willis, the latter of whom picked up two 2^nd place finishes in the Shot and Hammer, 3^rd in the Discus, and 4^th in the Pole vault! Our Club record breaking quartet of Harry Livesey [U17], Kane Dedewo [U17], Dylan Haarhoff [U17], and Jacob Thomas [U20] took second place in 45.86s, we look forward to watching this quartet go through the age groups and set many more records in the future!

A shoutout to Nicola Bell, who picked up her 3^rd Woman of the Match nomination in a row for her 2^nd place throw in the Women’s Javelin A string, which gave her the second best performance in the Women’s events on the day [the award winner actually went to the winner of the Javelin event!]. Nicola has had a fantastically consistent season, and we hope she’ll be rewarded with the win next time!

Underlining the Men’s dominance, for the first time in many years, 5 of the 6 Man of the Match performances went to Walton Athletes! Congratulations to Ethan Dray [1^st B 200m 22.34s], Sam Mace [1^st A Hammer 49.81m], Tanapon Longjamnong [1^st A Triple Jump 13.47m], and Brook Cronin [1^st A 100m 10.66s & 1^st A 200m 21.27s]. Both of Brook’s performances were enough to take 1^st and 2^nd on the Man of the Match performance table, congratulations to all athletes and well done to Brook!

Our final fixture takes us to Aldershot on the 17^th August, we look forward to seeing another strong performance from our Walton AC Ladies and Gentlemen!