THE long trek down to Plymouth was worthwhile for Stevenage and North Herts AC for their third Southern Women s League Division One meeting of the season. The team set off from Stevenage at 6pm on Friday evening to make the six-hour journey to compete on

THE long trek down to Plymouth was worthwhile for Stevenage and North Herts AC for their third Southern Women's League Division One meeting of the season.

The team set off from Stevenage at 6pm on Friday evening to make the six-hour journey to compete on Saturday afternoon.

They finished the match with 197 points in second place, just seven and a half points behind a strong team from Reading but ahead of home team Plymouth.

In the senior events, the team members had six wins and six athletes finished second.

Emma Kemp ran 12.5 over 100m to win the B race with Bunmi Awokoya running the same time in the A race.

In the 200m, Emma was second in 25.6 and Bunmi won the B race in 26.4.

Sarah Bailey (10:23.3) and Dawn Shars (11:38.1) both finished second in the 3000m races.

The 100m hurdles saw Beth Harris finish second in the A race (19.4) and Sandra Reed run 20.4 to win the B race.

In the 400m, Joanne Mansell recorded a time of 61.1 in the A race. Joylyn Saunders-Mullins continued her build-up for the European Masters in July to take place in Poznan, Poland, with a run of 63.7.

The 800m races were contested by Jasmin Forde (2:27.0) and Francesca Witney (2:32.4).

Sam McCormick and Rebecca Newstead ran 5:03.7 and 5:29.4 respectively in the 1500m.

The 4x100m relay squad of Joanne Mansell, Emma Kemp, Jordan Arthur and Bunmi Awokoya won in 51.3.

Joanne and Emma teamed up with Jasmin Forde and Joylyn Saunders-Mullins to be edged into second place by one-tenth of a second in the 4x400m relay. Emma ran an excellent last leg in 54.1 to finish the race in 4:03.0.

In the field events, the club had a clean sweep in the high jump.

Wendy Meadow-Smith cleared 1.50m and Beth Harris 1.30m in the B event. Beth was second in the pole vault with a clearance of 2.40m and Wendy was first in the B string.

Lauren Scanes recorded 24.54m in the discus and Rachel Williams 30.67m in the javelin, while Jean Harris threw 27.01m in the hammer.

Jordan Arthur was second in the 80m hurdles in 18.2. She also ran a personal best of 12.8 in the 100m non-scoring race, and Francesca Witney ran 18.4 to win the B hurdles.

In the under-15 girls' events, Chloe Vernon Hamilton and Amy Pring won the 1500m races in 5:18.3 and 5:28.3.

Ashleigh Clarke came home first in the 75m hurdles in 12.9 with Hanna Sweetman (14.1) second in the B race.

Chloe was first in the discus with 18.31m.

Natalie Wilcox ran 14.6 in the 100m, Julia White 30.5 in the 200m and Louise O'Connell ran 2:40.0 over 800m and Karen Meadows 2:44.4. Ann Rees cleared 1.45m in the high jump to win with Jessica Bishton second with a height of 1.30m.

Frances Gross gained maximum points in the discus with 22.38m and 6.80m in the shot to finish second. In the long jump Bethan Scanes jumped 4.31m and Hollie Crease threw 10.24m in the javelin.