Team spirit helps Nene Valley beat the drop

Nene Valley Harriers staved off relegation from Division One of the Southern Athletics League with a battling fourth place at the final match held at Portsmouth.

The athletes tried impressively hard to compete with everything that Portsmouth, Southampton and Havering could throw at them, with team spirit shining through from the off.

Decathlete David Bush swapped his spikes for throwing shoes to compete in the shot put and 400m hurdles at the same time – and actually won the hurdles.

Phil Wilson did something similar, winning the ‘B’ string 400m hurdles while also finishing second in the shot.

This same attitude was shown by Devon Spencer who, having completed her win in the triple jump, followed it up by throwing the discus and jumping over the high jump bar.

These were valuable points for the club and very commendable performances.

The club decathletes and pole vaulters appeared to be attempting to cover as many laps, throw as many objects or jump over everything and anything available at the Portsmouth track.

Pete Lewis (pole vault) ran the 800m, while decathlete Adam Fidgett amazingly covered just under six miles as he scored in the 1,500m, 5,000m, 2,000m steeple chase and the comparatively short 800m.

Also busy was Bush, who competed in seven events – most involving jumping or throwing, plus running a relay leg.

Other athletes also competed in unfamiliar events in order to help the club pick up valuable points – and had no complaints about stepping up to cover missing athletes.

Leigh Ann Rose (under-17) and Tash Segal were examples of this in the 800m.

For Segal, it served as a warm-up for her 400m straight afterwards in which she picked up a commendable second place. She also went on to record second place in the 200m and stepped up to the mark to assist both relay teams to second place, scoring a massive 13 points.

Rose, in her first season doing the event, then did the 1,500m steeplechase and did enough to beat both Portsmouth’s scoring athletes.

Lily Hughes was another athlete who arrived on the day and willingly stepped into compete in additional events.

The 100m and 200m sprinter claimed second and first places in those ‘A’ string events respectively, but also volunteered to claim a fourth place in the shot put, and assist both relays teams to second places.

Young talent Megan Pusey, who only found out she was going to have to run a scoring 400m when an athlete failed to turn up on the day, went out and won the B string with a decent time.

Pusey was also a member of that second place 4x400m relay team along with Segal, Hughes and Cat Foley.

Sean Reidy followed Bush’s example in the 110m hurdles. He showed his and the team’s competitive nature after hitting the ninth hurdle and virtually somersaulting over the last one as a result.

Elsewhere, Emily Maltby, once again competing in her maximum number of events permitted – and even pleaded to be able to do more.

She picked up good wins in her main events – the triple jump and the 100m hurdles. Maltby also achieved second place in the 100m flat sprint and bagged points in the long and high jumps.

Ellie Mae Stokes also stepped up for the hurdles and proceeded to win the B string race. She was the fourth member of the 4x100m team which claimed second place too, along with Hughes, Segal and Spencer.

Not to be outdone, Kelly Lawrence continued to be the club’s top scoring senior lady with good points in all four throwing events.

Similarly performances came from Cat Foley, Emma Penniston and Yolanda Gratton, who competed in the distance events for the team.
At the end of the day the men’s 4x400m team got disqualified.

That did mean that the team finished fourth on the day, but Nene Valley’s 11th place finish in the top division was sufficient to ensure top flight competition next season for the ladies and men’s combined team.