Whanganui athletes win all three regional league meetings to take the club title

Grace Godfrey (captain) and Sophie Redmayne (left) receiving the Junior Teams Award at the Ray White Whanganui Sports Awards at the weekend on behalf of the relay squad. Photo / Stuart Munro

Whanganui wrapped up the Regional League in Wellington at the weekend by winning all three meetings in the 18-club competition.

The winning margin of 245 overall over near neighbours Palmerston North was emphatic, Hastings were a further 156 points in arrears.

The foundation for victory came from the women's section of the team, notably the relay combination that won all three competitions in both 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 and in Wellington highlighted this strength by finishing first and second in the women's 4 x 100.

The success of the women's relays was rewarded by winning both the Secondary Schools junior team (under 16) and the Ray White Whanganui Sports Awards in the under 21 team award on Friday.

Tuesday's Chronicle corrected the administrative error at Friday's awards when the citation announced was that of the younger under 16 section. This clearly did not worry the athletes involved with an outstanding race between the under 16 4 x100 team and the under 19 team on Saturday.

The Junior combination of Sophie Williams, Ana Brabyn, Lucy Brown and Genna Maples won by 4/100 of a second from the seniors Tayla Brunger, Emma Osborne, Sophie Redmayne and Grace Godfrey (50.14 and 50.19 respectively).

Both teams will have gained considerable confidence for next week's New Zealand Schools Championships. In the 4 x 400 Whanganui fielded their strongest combination of Tayla Brunger, Ana Brabyn, Grace Godfrey and Emma Osborne in a national class time of 3:57.98 to win by 22 seconds.

The Whanganui High School team, who provided the men's combination in the 4 x 100, will be heartened by the win in the men's section and when Ethan Cox returns to the team and with a little more work on exchanges could do very well in Dunedin.

As indicated earlier, the team win was built on the success of the women. Rebecca Baker was a convincing winner in the 1500m (4:54.51) while Ana Brabyn won the 800 metres with a personal best 2:16.12 beating a classy field, firmly announcing herself as a real contender in the Junior Girls next week.

Ashleigh Alabaster had another good win over steeples, Paris Munro won her 80 metre hurdles with Sophie Redmayne winning the 300 metre hurdles in 47.07 which was a season's best. Emma Osborne also ran a season's best in the 400 metres 56.60 and backed this up on Tuesday night with 2:14.40 in the 800 metres and is clearly coming into form at the right time. Genna Maples was on catch-up mode in the 100m after a poor start and finished 2nd but put this behind her with an emphatic win over 200 metres.

In the men Connor Munro won the 300 metres hurdles and was second in the pole vault and also ran in the winning 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 metre relay teams. Travis Bayler who contributed to the relay successes was 3rd in the 400 metres with a season's best of 51.01 for third. William Sinclair missed the start of the 1500 metres made amends by running a personal best over 800m (1:58-81) for 4th one place behind his younger brother Joseph.

Fourteen-year-old Lucas Martin took a further 50 seconds off his walk time to finish second in the 3000m Track Walk to stop the clock in 15:25.65. This was over 30 seconds inside the Collegiate record standard and he went straight to number 2 in the New Zealand under 18 rankings. Martin has the ability do very well at the NZ Schools Championships.

Thrower Pati Leo set a big personal best in shot put with his first 13 metre effort (13.36) finishing 4th a position he repeated in the discus, scoring valuable points in the process.

Karl Lobe, who is German exchange student at Whanganui High School, demonstrated versatility and skill finishing 2nd in the 300 metre hurdles and 3rd in the Pole Vault. Lobe can do very well in the junior grade at New Zealand Schools next week. Interestingly one of his rivals in the Pole Vault will be another exchange student (from Chile, Pedro Claro) — Wanganui Collegiate School — who hopes to emulate his older brother who won the junior vault two years ago.

In Christchurch former Whanganui athlete Lexi Maples showed real character in the Canterbury Heptathlon after a disastrous first hurdle event rallied with personal bests in shot, javelin and Long Jump.

Further afield former Collegiate middle-distance runner Geordie Beamish ran in the winning Northern Arizona team that retained the prestigious NCAA Division 1 Cross Country title.

Next week I will preview the New Zealand Secondary Schools to be held in Dunedin from November 30 to December 2.