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Bayside Women Newsletter No. 4
The gridlocked traffic around Olympic Park was probably a warning that the karma was not good for round 4, and so it was to prove. Several of our athletes were hit by some really lousy luck that took the gloss from a strong team effort on the night. Competing against the form team, Essendon, and the always-dangerous Box Hill, Bayside finished well back in third place. There was some consolation in beating Doncaster for the first time since the 1997 promotion/relegation match, but with any reasonable luck we could have finished considerably closer to the two teams that eventually tied for first place.
Simone Thompson was the first to suffer, being unable to front the line in the 5k walk. Megan Peters then made the suffering literal, battling stomach pains most of the way, but hanging on for a gutsy fourth place. The tide seemed to turn when Karen Lynne made the longest triple jump of the night, and Sarah Wiltshire took second place in the high jump, but the 100m showed otherwise. Melissa Tilley, having at last managed to bring everything to the start line, broke twice and was out of her heat. Caroline Russell remained to make her state league debut - at an age that will remain confidential - only to miss qualifying by 0.03 seconds.
At this stage, Essendon had streaked away, but the other three teams were within a few points of each other. Bayside now took a strong grip on second with victories to Gabriel Neighbour in the hammer and Nikki Aspris in the javelin, but a 1, 2, 3 sweep by Box Hill in the 1500m gave them thirty-four points and second place. Michelle Sostoric finished fourth, but the bad luck continued for Kate Seibold, missing qualifying by 0.02 seconds despite running a PB. The relay looked promising, even more so when a blinding first leg by Katrina Steward put Bayside well in front. Essendon and Box Hill came back hard at Karen Lynne, but Melissa Tilley was still just in front when the change to Caroline Russell went awry and Bayside was out of the race. Not surprisingly, Melissa took it particularly hard, but unfortunately athletics has some days like that. The evening jinx was not quite through with us, however, as Kathryn Spalding discovered when her blocks decided to take off in the wrong direction at the start of the 100m hurdles. Sarah Wiltshire had taken third place in her heat, as usual making her own luck.
Meanwhile, Megan Boyes had been busy inside the track, with second place in the discus and third in the shot put. Box Hill, boosted by thirteen points in the pole vault and relay, and nineteen points in the steeple, now moved into a tie with Essendon, setting the stage for an exciting duel in the 400m. Caroline Russell toed the line determined not to go home without some points for the evening; she succeeded in splitting the top teams and keeping their scores tied, thus ending Essendon's string of first places. Not a bad way to end the night. The Maccabi girls answered the call for 400 runners and gave it an excellent shot. Lara Joffe went close to qualifying, with Shiree Freeman and Lara's twin sister Carla not far behind.
Not the best of nights, therefore, but the important thing is that we are continuing to field nearly full teams. At the moment, the competition is being dominated by three teams, Essendon, Eastside and Box Hill, while Geelong and Ballarat are firmly planted at the bottom of the table. The three teams in between are fairly close, so we need to take every point off them that we can. Beating Doncaster is an excellent start, but next week we have an even better opportunity when we are against RCDS and Geelong. RCDS is still vulnerable without Ms Freeman and Hewitt, so this should be looked at as a real chance to move up the ladder. It is equally important that we hammer Geelong, which means that we need every available athlete on deck.
This will be the last round before Christmas. The first round of 1999 will be at Geelong on Saturday, 9 January. In this round last season, Bayside had exactly five athletes (OK, so it was 43 degrees), while Geelong, not surprisingly, had their strongest team for the season. Guess what, we are against them again. Bearing in mind that there is no competition at Duncan MacKinnon that day, I am hoping that we will get a much stronger turn-out this time. If anyone needs a lift, it can be arranged. Put it in your diary now!
More info on the Results Page.
Round 4 of State League - report from J.Hanrahan
On a night where distance runners were light on the ground due to the upcoming Zatopek meet, the 1500 still managed to produce one of the more impressive performances of the night. Scott Petersen led all the way for a convincing win in his heat of the 1500m in 3.46. Unchallenged he made the most of a very good night for distance running and will be hard to beat in all local races this year. His performance was relegated to second best for the evening, however, when Mark Moresi ran a great 400, stopping the clock at 46.41. Moresi looked very strong and providing he continues to improve with racing over the season, he should be looking closely at a relay spot in Seville at least. The women distance runners are all in cotton wool, waiting for Saturday night, but that left Evette Cordy to make the night her own, winning her heat of the 100m, 400m and 110m hurdles - all in times that suggest that a good 400mh is around the corner. The men's throws were again solid, with Yohan Amerasekera going over 51m again and Aaron Hartney winning the shot convincingly with 15.43
With one round to go before Christmas, it is well worth noting that the first round after Christmas, January 9, will be conducted at Geelong and the program will be posted on this site shortly.
More importantly here's the BAYSIDE NEWS
On a disappointing night, we failed to take a good opportunity to knock off some teams out of sorts and could do no better than fourth in the men's and third in the women's.
A couple of non-appearances and a couple of non-qualifiers, which hurt, affected the men. It will take a lot better organisation by the team manager (me) so that nights like this don't occur too often. Most disappointing was the fact that we weren't able to make the most of Cameron Grant's first appearance for us in the hammer, where he won our 4 team comp as well as the event overall with 57.80. considering that he was not expecting much and would come "fresh" next week, we have a lot to look forward to.
The 1500m lads ran solidly, with Tony and Tim managing to qualify, while Sean McAleer got his pace just right and ran a great 3k Steeple in 9.47 to come second in our competition. Sean will be a huge asset through the season and with a fit Roger Moresi, and a registered (?) Adrian Wilson, we could have a very strong little steeple team.
The sprinters fought well against tough competition and we should thank Tim Sullivan for stepping in when we were short an athlete and were lacking warmed up athletes. Stuart Laidlaw ran a very respectable 11.56 but could only manage 5th - over 0.5sec from 4th in a very hot field. Jeremy Marmur also ran well to clock 11.54.
Shaun Pollard and Matt Woodruff are picking up points with ease - I wish we had more like them - and in the middle of his Triple Jump, Matt managed to duck off and run the final leg of a relay for us, only to be robbed of third by the electronic timing. It is moments like that when the photo finish machine sucks!
No hurdlers hurt and a bum in the shot put didn't help, but our 400m runners ran up to expectations as Disco Stu dipped under 50 seconds and Pete De La Haye and Evan Rees ran mid 51's to show that we have a competitive team in that event. In the Disc Matt Brown came up against one of the few guys that will beat him and I must thank Andrew Dosen for competing on a night when communication had broken down and we were left with an extra thrower - a situation other clubs would love to have.
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Clockwise from bottom: Tony Wilson in the 1500m; Hammer star Cameron Grant; and the ever shy Matt Brown with long-time companion 'blankie'. |
Anyway, next week sees us up against APS, Ringwood and Box Hill and wouldn't it be nice to win one before Christmas!?! Thanks to all those who competed and/or helped and we'll see you all next Thursday.
Final Placings:Essendon, Box Hill, Doncaster, Bayside
Results are here.
Bayside Athletes were all over the park on Saturday night at the Zatopek meet. First Tim Crosbie was a member of the victorious Midday Milers team in the Corporate 4x800m realy. Then "Disco" Stu Laidlaw and Alistair Tait continued their good form in the 400mH. Up against a hot field, they managed 6th and 7th. Over at the Long Jump Sarah Wiltshire was performing very well, eventually finishing second with a 5.93w leap. Jeanette Bowles was fifth. Roger Moresi then went around in the steeple and looks good for a few runs in Bayside colours over the remainder of the season. Evan Rees found it hard against some of Victoria's best 400m men but made the most of the quality company and ran pretty quick. Meanwhile Matt Brown was entertaining us all with his Merv Hughes impersonations over at the Discus. In the process both he and Andrew Dosen presumably picked up some valuable grand prix points.
The guy most of us had come along to cheer on was Marty Fedmowski however. His task: to take on some of this country's best junior men over 3k. He suffered a little in the push and shove of the start and took several laps to find his rhythm. He couldn't quite match the very quick pace set up front but held on well for a Pb and 8th place. He's got another year in this event and looks like he's doing the right stuff for another World Cross Country selection. A big hurrah to Dean Lane also for his 2nd in Fridays night Zatopek B-Race.
Full Results can be found at the Athletics Australia page.