Press Report August 21st 2018
Southern League
Woodford
Saturday 18th August
Injury and holidays hit the Ilford team before last weekend’s final Southern League Match of the season, held at Woodford. Despite some impressive individual performances the team finished 6th in the match.
Top points scorer for the team was Esmeralda Mengeyele who started the day with 3rd in the Long Jump, before quickly switching to the track for second in the B string 100m. She then tackled the shot putt for the first time this season and took 5th place, and followed this up with a very good second in the Javelin with a throw of 24.73. Her final event of the day was the 4x100m relay where she teamed up with Krystle Balogun, Efe Autinz and Ellie Wright for second place, in a time of 52.26 which was the quickest by an Ilford women’s team this season.
Krystle Balogun was busy as ever, firstly running a PB in the non scoring 100m of 13.07, and then coming third in the A string 200m and winning the A sting 400m. Joining Krystle in the 200m was Ellie Wright who was second in the B string in 28.10. Efe Autinz came 4th in the A string 100m
Gemima Eshimu Massamba continued her impressive season winning the B string 400m in just outside seconds, with Jordan Hinds having previously come 3rd in the 800, did a non scoring 400 where she ran 65 seconds.
The final member of the women’s team was Nicola Hopkinson, who came to the match to officiate, but ended scoring valuable points in coming 3rd in the A sting 3000m
Top scorers on the men’s side were Dan Wheeler and Jordan Akinpelu. Both did the 100m and 200, with Dan coming second in the A sting 100m in a Pb of 11.45 and then also setting another Pb of 23.14 in coming 3rd in the A string 200m, in addition he cleared 1m 75 for 4th in a very good High jump competition and rounded his day off with 6th in the A string Javelin. Jordan came 2nd in the B string 100m in 11.65, second in the 200m in 23.93 and 4th in the Long jump with a best of 6.10
Training Partners Aaron Samuel and Farris Patel did the 800m, and both ran well to break 2 minutes in the windy conditions. Aaron came back an hour later to run a Pb of 54.26 to place 3rd in the 400m, before trying his hand at the Javelin.
Mungo Prior who is returning to form after a long time out injured ran a Pb of 4.24.26 in coming 4th in the 1500m, he had earlier placed 3rd in the B string high Jump.
Steve Philcox and Bradley Brown tackled what turned out to be a high standard 5000m, Steve took 5th in the A string in 17.45 and Bradley 4th in the B string in 23.04. Adnan Karim in his first ever track race also ran the 5000m in a very good 22.14.4.
The remaining points were gained in the Long Jump, shot and discus by Pete Whiting, Wayne Hick and Gary Floate.
The final League positions are not yet known, but it is believed Ilford finished in 16th place, an improvement on last year’s league position.