Crawley AC women gain promotion in UK League

Kim Baptiste sped to victory in the 200m in 24.23secs having earlier finished third in the 100m.

Livvy Connor was second in both the pole vault and triple jump, which earned the side some good points.

Hannah Brooks came second in the 800m with her best time of the season, 2.11.27s.

It was a great overall achievement as the team finished second but were close to becoming crowned champions having finished just one point behind Harrow.

It was all the more special as the team were missing their captain, international heptathlete Jo Rowland.

The team would like to thank Karen Shackel for all her hard work organising the travel arrangements.

Crawley AC men’s team secured another year in Division 2 of the British Athletics League with a fourth place overall finish following their final fixture at Kingston on the 8 August.

The team got off to a great start in the opening event with a double victory in the hammer competition.

James Lasis stepped up to the ‘A’ string with a fine 54.54m victory.

Munroe Ritchie gave great support by winning the ‘B’ string whilst topping the 50m barrier with two throws for the first time with an impressive 50.48m personal best.

James Lasis had less than five minutes recovery before his next event the discus competition.

James had a significantly tougher challenge against his training partner from the home club, Chris Dack from Kingston.

Chris produced two personal best performances to hold the lead with a 46.85m effort before James launched a massive 47.18m in the final round to take the win.

James continued his busy afternoon in the shot and javelin to individually secure a massive 43 points towards the team total.

James Hollins was also in dominant form in the long jump by breaking the 7m barrier on two occasions.

James was in fine form to take the ‘A’ string win with a massive personal best leap of 7.20m.

Parallel to the long jump competition the Crawley vaulters were also in great form by securing 24 points out of a possible 28 with a double second place finish.

Leigh Walker took the ‘A’ string with a vault of 4.23m and Scott Devlin the ‘B’ string with 3.83m.

Elsewhere on the track George Grainger was in great shape in the opening track event the 400m hurdles to record a new personal best of 54.17sec.

George continued with a busy afternoon in covering six events including the high jump, sprint hurdles, 200m and both relays.

This event tally was also matched by multi-eventer Sam Cunningham.

Sam showed real team spirit by stepping in to cover additional events and ran a sensational 200m to match his personal best of 23.84 sec.

Team captain Craig Cox continued his fine form by securing a second place finish in the 400m ‘B’ with a solid 50.32 sec clocking.

There was also another sterling performance from Max Thomas, who took second place in both the 800m and 1500m races clocking 1:54.00 and 3:56.56 respectively.

Joel Buckett made a welcome return to the team following a knee injury by setting a new personal best in the 800m breaking the 2min barrier with a 1:58.81 recording.

Ben Golding secured great points in the ‘B’ string 1500m with a huge 3 second personal best of 4:07.29.

The final match result standings were: 1) Thames Valley Harriers 363, 2) Harrow 343 3) Kingston 329 4) Crawley 270 5) Bristol & West 250 6) Notts AC 248, 7) Nene Valley Harriers 247 8) Gateshead 69

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