Nine personal best performances were achieved by athletes from
Morpeth Harriers & AC at the sixth and final Start Fitness sponsored North Eastern Grand Prix Meeting, held at Gateshead’s International Stadium on Wednesday 12th August 2015. A very fitting finale to the league was definitely in the seeded 3000m, where the club had no fewer than eight athletes taking part. The event was won by Morpeth’s Chris Smith, who managed to outpace Middlesbrough and Cleveland’s Gregg Jayasuriya in the closing stages, and crossed the finish line in a brand new personal best of 8m38.1s, winning by just under a second. Fourth place went to Morpeth’s Thomas Straughan, who also set new figures of 8m48.0s, just outpacing club colleague Carl Avery, who was running the distance for the first time, and could feel well pleased with his clocking of 8m48.2s. Also running the distance for the first time, and also his first track outing in a Morpeth vest was Steve Patterson, following his transfer from Alnwick Harriers. Steve clocked 10m13.4s, and was tenth fastest Senior Man. James Young of Morpeth was second fastest Junior Man in the seeded 3000m, clocking a time of 9m23.5s, again a new personal best performance. Clocking a personal best time of 9m11.4s, Kieran Hedley of Morpeth was the fastest in the Under 17 Men’s 3000m Adam Shewry’s 10m11.2s, earned him third fastest Under 17 Man in the 3000m. Emma Holt set new figures of 9m52.3s to win the Senior Women’s 3000m. Morpeth athletes Adam Gibbs and Joe Elder were first and second fastest finishers in the Junior Men’s 400m, with respective clockings of 51.35s and 54.04s. In the Senior Men’s 400m, Morpeth’s Paul Bellingham was sixth fastest in 66.80s. Amber Cormack set new figures of 62.14s, when finishing as second fastest Junior Woman in the 400m. Both Ross Charlton and Connor Marshall produced new figures of 10m09s and 10.15s respectively when finishing second and third in the Under 15 Boys 3000m. Morpeth had three athletes competing in the Under 13 Girls 800m. Rhiannon Hedley finished second in 2m33.46s to North East Counties Champion Natasha Stephenson of Gateshead Harriers. Third place went to Holly Peck in 2m33.64s, and fourth place went to Lily Heaton in 2m34.22s. Morpeth’s Joe Dowd finished third in the Under 15 Boys 800m in 2m11.06s. In the Under 15 Shot Putt, Morpeth’s Andrew Knight won with a best effort of 9.04m, and in the Under 13 Boys Shot Putt clubmate Daniel Lloyd finished second with a new best of 7.39m. Despite finishing fifth in their final Northern Athletics Senior League Division 2 match,
held at Middlesbrough’s New Athletics Village on Saturday 8th August 2015, Morpeth Harriers & Athletics Club still avoided relegation by virtue of their accumulated match points won over the four fixtures, points which saw them finish third overall, which is one of the best achievements made by the club for several years. The second day of the championships brought three more medals to the table for the club.
Bobbie Griffiths, fresh from her medal winning efforts on the first day, returned to the venue to take the Bronze medal in the Under 15 Girls Discus. She fought a tight battle for third place with Amber Valley’s Lily Naylor, however squeezed into the medal winning slot by a mere 14cm with her best throw of 26.88m. Griffiths also threw a lifetime best of 23.66m in the Hammer, however in a very tough front line competition she could only finish tenth of 12 in the competition. Scott Beattie won a Bronze medal in the Under 17 Men’s 1500m, finishing behind Hallamshire’s Cameron Bell, and Skyrac’s Alex Pagdin in a time of 4m07.80s Morpeth’s Under 15 Boy Ross Charlton won a Silver medal in the 3000m, finishing behind Middlesbrough Mandale’s year older Josh Cowperthwaite, who won in 10m18.5s. Charlton posted a time of 10m24.9s. Morpeth’s only other athlete competing at the championships was Ailsa Jones, who unfortunately went out in the heats of the Under 15 Girls 800m. Globe trotting Andrew Lawrence of Morpeth Harriers
broke the course record at the Isle of Coll Half Marathon, on Saturday 15th August 2015. Lawrence won the event in a time of 72m26s, which gave him just over a five minute marginal victory over Sepentine’s Hugh Torry. Third place went to another Serpentine athlete Simon Barratt, who finished in 78m29s. The event had 105 finishers. Jonny Taylor showed no signs of dropping his current
dearth of form when he competed in the Men’s 1500m A race in the penultimate BMC Gold Standard Meeting, held at Stretford, Manchester on Tuesday 11th August 2015. The Tees-Side based Morpeth Harrier was very narrowly beaten to the finish line by Birchfield’s Jack Hallas, posting a time of 3m45.92s, which was around four seconds adrift of his lifetime best for the distance. Hallas clocked 3m45.42s, and behind Taylor in the ten strong field were notables such as Jonathan Davies of Reading and Jack Crabtree of Sale Harriers, who were fifth and sixth respectively. |
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