AVSL Round 2 - Glenhuntly
We had much nicer weather today, and with 2 closer venues, Waverley-Malvern were up and about. We had 23 athletes doing 59 events (20 more than last week). We scored 16,229 points, over 5,000 more than last week, and better than 10 of our 12 rounds last year rounds last year.
Also you may have noticed the scoring system has been changed this year and it’s harder to get points. The throw points are much tougher, Big Shane is getting 100-150 points less for the same throws as last year and for the distance runners it’s 50-100 points less than the same results as last year. So don’t be hard on yourself if your points are down on last year. The whole system has changed. Which makes today’s result of 16,229 points even more impressive.
We finished in 5th place (in the top half) of Division 3 and were within 300 points of 4th (just 1 big event short). Casey Cardinia and Preston are the top 2 teams, but we’re not far off Ballarat YCW in 3rd. We’re also well clear of the bottom 2 spots (Wyndham and Bellarine), so hopefully we won’t have to dig quite as deep in the last round this year to avoid relegation.
We do have quite a few of us away next weekend, with a distance training weekend at Lorne. So calling all athletes who aren’t away to help us out in round 3 to keep up this good momentum. Fortunately we don’t need to supply any helpers for a few rounds now.
For the Powerplay Round (double points), I’m thinking round 6 looks pretty good. It’s on Saturday 30th November at Glenhuntly and Doncaster again, the same program as today, where we’ve done very well. Please let us know if this works for you, and lets tentatively lock this in the calendar. Even athletes who don’t normally run Shield – we would love to see absolutely everyone out having a go to maximise our double points.
Some highlights from today:
- We filled two 4×100m relay teams out at Glenhuntly – a great effort by Christine, Helen, Amy and Linda, and also by Arun, Ryan, Alex and Martin.
- Kate Fawkner was our highest point scorer again with 1,170 points from 3 throw events at Doncaster. She scored our highest event points with 468 points in the shot put. Great work Kate.
- Craig Sanford debuted for the season, in his first hit out since the World Championships relay medal. He was only 3 points short of Kate’s points and with a sizzling 57.2 400m.
- Christine Bridle improved on R1 with 1,079 points, turning the tables narrowly on Linda in R2. These 2 are neck and neck. Great points in the shot put.
- Linda Buttigieg with 1,062 points, including the pole vault (the most difficulty event). Has Christine covered by just 9 points out of 2,143 – total after R2
- Helen Anderson with a big 909 points, ranging from 200m to 800m, plus two throws.
- Great to see Clyde back, doing a lazy 6 events, and showing us all what it’s possible to do at 70+. Clyde’s best 3 events were the shot put, discus and walk. But disappointingly he scratched from the last event of the day, the 5K.
- Great work by Yvonne – another 600 points for awesome officialling
- Good results in the distance events.
- in the 800m at Glenhuntly, Alexander Shopov was our quickest with 2:16.4, flying past Martin in the last 50m. Amy ran a great 2:38 to finish 3rd in womens heat 2.
In the 3K Martin was quickest with
– in the 1500m at Doncaster, Craig Sanford our best men’s result with 4:51, and Niamh our best points result with 398 points for 5:39 in heat 2
- in the 3000m at Glenhuntly Martin was our quickest with 10:38. But Amy was our best points with 407 for an amazing 10:58
- in the 5K, Julian was our quickest with 19:30
- in the shot put we had our most results with 10. Shane threw the furthest with 13.43, but new boy Jack Ashcroft was very impressive with 11.40. I threw in the same heat as Jack and he pretty much doubled my distance. Linda the furthest of our females with 7.88
- in the discus Shane threw furthest with 36.39, and Linda the furthest female with 21.65.
- in the sprints Craig was our fastest and only 100m runner with 13.80. In the 200m Jack was our quickest with 25.41 (narrowly from Arun and Alex), and Helen our quickest female with 35.95.
- in the pole vault we were excited to see a potential battle, with Daniel entering at Doncaster v Linda at Glenhuntly. We had Teamapp ready to relay the comparative heights. But sadly Daniel scratched from the vault this time. Hopefully we’ll have a big crowd to support him at his debut in this crazy event in another round. Linda cleared a lazy 2.15. So he’ll have his work cut out.
- Good to see Ryan’s hamstring held out in a gentler R2 after a twinge in R1 following his sizzling pb 12.1
- thanks John for helping me out to cover our discus helper duty.
