S
ummer 2011 was a season which
saw many of the juniors make
great strides in their development,
while some of the older members
pushed their way into county,
regional and national competitions.
The junior boys' team eventually came eighth in
the nine counties for the South West England
region of the English Schools' Cup, doing very well
against far larger schools, who are able to draw
on greater numbers. High scoring contributions
came from stalwarts Charlie Granville, Blaine
Tottle and Joe Cooke, though they were ably
assisted by Will Potter and Joe Merriweather. It
was evident that the younger boys were very able,
and indeed Charlie and Joe went through to
perform at the English Schools' Championships in
July, at javelin and high jump respectively.
Several of the younger girls were also enjoying
a fine season, led by 3rd formers Alicia
Mileham, Olivia Pittman, Maddie Robinson,
and Gussy Hydleman and Penny Guess from
the 4th form. Penny enjoyed a few decent 800
metre runs before succumbing to illness, but
Gussy made great progress in the triple jump,
and gained valuable experience when also
attending the national championships.
It was interesting to watch the development of
the various groups, whether throwers, jumpers,
or runners of any distance, though the middle
distance devotees inevitably took a little more
time to get fit after eight or nine months of taking
part in other sports: Amelia Evans and Henry
Willis saw more benefit than most from the
training, doing well in the BMC meeting in early
May, all the way through to Amelia's appearance
at the South West Championships, where she
finished third senior girl in the 1500 metres.
Katy Preece (heptathlon) and Joe Cooke
(pentathlon) were the best placed of our
athletes at the County Combined Events
meeting. Whilst they were kept busy for a day
or two the rest of the athletics club took part in
the Blundell's meeting, with 14 event wins
being shared around 11 athletes of all ages
including: Nancy Rowe, Pippa O'Neill, Hilary
Moorhead, Jordan Webb, Francesco Roggia,
Dan Mead, Michael Peek, James Fisher, Charlie
Niekirk and Jack Storer.
After an excellent week at the Somerset AA
Championships and the Taunton Area Schools
event, quite a large number of athletes had
secured both good wins and selection to take
part in the Somerset Schools event.
Hilary Moorhead broke the Under 20s record in
the county long jump event, and personal bests
were posted by Charlie Granville (javelin),
Gussy Hydleman and Sophia Collins (horizontal
jumps), while wins came from Hayden Tyler,
Tom Drysdale, George Chapman, James Fisher
and Amelia Evans, whilst Tristan Drew
surprised even himself in doing very well at
200 metres.
The biggest match of the season took place at
Millfield with ten other schools - our bestAluredian
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