Following the successful Trials held at Richard Dunn Sports centre the West Yorkshire teams travelled to the match in Halifax for the Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Finals.
The match at Halifax again featured both the Under 11 and the Under 13/15 teams and the opponents were North and South Humberside, and North Yorkshire.
In the end the West Yorkshire Tykes Under 11 Boys team finished in 1st place with 498 points with North Yorkshire 17 points behind, just showing that every point counted for the Team. The West Yorkshire team won the Over Under Relay, 1+1 lap Relay, 4×1 Lap relay and the Grand Prix Relay. Individuals topping the rankings were George Hahn in the Standing Long Jump and Chest Push, Sam Bentley in the Speed Bounce, Tom Barlow in the vertical jump, Dan Logan in the Standing Triple Jump and Harrison Oddie in the Balance Test. All members of the team did very well in their individual events which are scored together with their team mates for the team positions.
The West Yorkshire Tykes Girls Team also finished in 1st place with a total of 506 points a massive 34 points ahead of North Yorkshire. The team picked up a clean sweep in the relays with top points in the Over Under Relay, 1+1 relay, 4×1 Lap relay, 6 Lap Paarlauf, Hurdle relay, 2+2 lap relay and the Grand Prix. In the individual events Amelia Brown was ranked 1st in the Chest Push, Amelia Garnett won the Standing Triple Jump, Sarah Taylor Bird was joint 1st in the Balance Test, Healeanor MacDonald won the Vertical Jump and Lisa Tiler won the Standing Long Jump. All members of the team did very well in their individual events which are scored together with their team mates for the team positions.
The Under 13 and Under 15 Boys and Girls teams competed in the Yorkshire Regional Final looking for places in the United Kingdom Finals to be held at Sport City in Manchester on 16th & 17th April. This was the second round of a highly competitive series of events, which is designed to keep young athletes interested in the sport through the long winter months of training. The competition was between North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire looking for the Yorkshire & Humberside place at the UK Finals,
The performances on the day saw the Under 13 Boys qualifying for the UK Finals winning in convincing style beating North Yorkshire by 90 points with a total of 737, but the Under 13 Girls lost out to North Yorkshire and failed to qualify for the UK finals.
In the Under 13 Boys competition the Team won the Obstacle Relay, 4×1 Lap relay, 8 Lap Parlauf relay and 4×2 Lap relay. In the individual events Alfie Bugg won the Standing Triple Jump, but many others in the team came close in 2nd or 3rd place to accumulate those valuable points.
In the Under 13 Girls competition the team were beaten by North Yorkshire by 48 points. In this competition Rabana Smith won the 2 lap race and the team won the 4×2 Lap relay.
In the Under 15 competitions the West Yorkshire teams were weakened by athletes not being available because of holidays or injury so neither the Boys or Girls qualified to go forward in the competition. The Under 15 Boys team had 2 of the team of 7 members failing to turn up on the day unfortunately letting the other team members down. There were some good performances from Ben Adeniji, Harry Watford, Rauf Mak, Mohammed Collector and Abbas Khan, so with a full team the result might have been different. Ben Adeniji came a good 4th in the overall individual competition.
The Under 15 Girls came very close losing out to North Yorkshire by just 10 points but had first equal with Lucy Tattersfield and Georgia May Codd in the Overall Individual Competition so they both qualify as Individual Entries at the National Finals. Lucy won the Vertical Jump, Georgia won the Shot Put and Standing Long Jump. Jess Rainer won the 2 Lap race.
The UK Finals are to be held at Sport City in Manchester again this year with The Under 13 Boys and Individuals Lucy Tattersfield and Georgia May Codd from West Yorkshire Teams taking part.
Alan Oates
West Yorkshire Sportshall Athletics Co-ordinator