On Saturday 6th June, the BAL team travelled to Bedford for their second match. The team arrived to find very windy conditions which were to play havoc with individual results. The BAC turn-out was strong but was missing a few key athletes due to injury.
Notable performances in the field came from the High Jump duo of Alex Cox and Jamie Williamson who each battled it out to 2nd places in A and B strings. Cox jumped a season’s opener of 1.95m as well as scoring decent points in the Discus throw.
James Lelliott gave great commitment to a range of field events scoring many valuable points for the team. He teamed up with Patrick Sylla with whom he scored an A and B string victory in the Long Jump. Lelliot’s 7.34m jump won the event by more than 70cm. He and Andy Brown then went on to score good points in the Javelin.
On the track the wind was very apparent. Sprinters Kevin Hodgson and Scott Rutter both ran sub 11s times to score valuable points in the 100m. Muiris Egan ran a particularly strong 400m A race to gain a worthy 3rd place, once again showing the strength he has this season. Rob McTaggart and David Long worked hard in the 5000m gaining 5th and 3rd places in the A and B string races. Roy Long (David’s dad) showed no fear by stepping in to the 3000m Steeple Chase to fill a space in the team and ended up reaping 6 valuable points.
BAC once again performed strong in both of the relays. The 4x100m quartet of Scott Rutter, Kev Hodgson, Ben Arnold and James Lelliott bought the baton home in 3rd place in the 4x100m race. In the 4x400m, Muiris Egan, Kev Hodgson, Scott Rutter and Karl Welch also took 3rd place.
At the end of the day BAC finished in 6th place (of 8) with only 12 points separating 4th, 5th and 6th places. This leaves BAC standing 6th (of 8) in the BAL Div 3 League Table on equal league points with the two teams immediately above. Had the team accumulated just 8 more match points over their first two matches then they would have retained their 4th place in the Division.
Team Manager Tim Hughes was very pleased with the performance of his athletes and with those who did more than just their normal events on the day.
“This match was particularly hard for us but we were able to battle through well because of that sheer commitment to succeed that this team has. We had some particular bad luck this round with a number of injuries which ruled out some key athletes from competing. We also had some athletes on the day who pushed through the pain barrier to get those extra points. I have to thank these guys especially and also those who helped fill in some gaps”.
Hughes goes on to talk about the next match. “We have to have a strong team for our next match at Derby on July 11th. I will be calling up a number of athletes who have not yet competed in the BAL this season and I look forward to an enthusiastic team travelling North for that match. I am sure we can pull out a great performance and rise back up the league table”.