High Tunstall College of Science

 Hartlepool Athletics Championships 2010

On Wed. 7th July over 80 students from the College were selected to compete at the District Athletics Championships.
Historically High Tunstall have always performed well at the event and up to 2 years ago had held the Overall Winners Trophy for 6 years. Then it had been English Martyrs who proved the stronger and have held it ever since. This year the students really wanted it back.

The Year 7 Girls worked well throughout the day and managed to finish 4th in a strong group, Leeimi Dodds being the performer of the day for the team- finishing 2nd in the Long Jump with a jump of 3.38m. Manor won this age group overall.

The Year 7 boys performed better and finished 2nd behind English Martyrs (only missing 1st place by 8 points). Team captain Anthony Hannant was the performer of the day in their team, winning the 200m in 30.67 seconds. He also helped the Relay team (along with Joseph Willis, Jonathan Heal and Jason Robinson) set a new College record of 59 seconds.

The Year 8 girls finished 2nd, only 4 points behind English Martyrs. Standout performances from Holly Readman (1st in the High Jump with a jump of 1.35m) and Mollie Macdonald (1st in the 1500m with a time of 5.59 seconds) kept the competition close.

The Year 8 Boys team won the first trophy of the day, finishing a massive 20 points above the next nearest opposition from Manor College. There were many top class performances here, as would be expected from a team who had won the County and come 2nd in the North East Indoor Athletics Championships earlier in the year. These performances included 1st places for Michael Hainsworth in the Hurdles (12.5 seconds), Danny Roberts in the Tripple Jump (10.25m), David Cooper in the Discus (25m) and David Wells in the Javelin (29m). Captain Danny Roberts also won the 100m and set a new College record in the event with a time of 12.60 seconds as well as helping set a new Relay record (along with Tom Brace, David Wells and Luke Hill) of 53.03 seconds.

The Year 9 girls finished 3rd (only 8 points off the lead team English Martyrs). The standout performers included Claudia Hill in the Hurdles (14.98 seconds) and Lydia Boyd-Hill in the Javelin (21.83m).

The Year 9 boys finished joint winners with St.Hilds. The best performances here came from Alex Ramshaw who won the Discus (22.55m) and from Captain Clint Dodd who won the 800m (2.25 minutes). The whole team were superb throughout as several key athletes were missing and all students had to be prepared to do their bit, some in events that were far from strengths. This made the victory all the more impressive.

The Year 10 girls then won their age group, beating English Martyrs (who were County Champions in the English Schools’ Atheletics Championships back in May) by 4 points. This was one of the best team performances from the day. Winners included Taylor Southern in the Hurdles (14.42 seconds), Emma Smith in the High Jump (1.45m), Lauren Rennie who won both the Long Jump (4.20m) and 200m (27.79s), Charlotte Jackson in the Shot (6.89m) and from Captain Demi Burdon in the 1500m (6.03 minutes).

This victory was closely followed by the Year 10 boys who beat English Martyrs to the top spot by 7 points. This was another impressive win from a team plagued by injuries and needing reserves to perform well on the day. Jonathan Conley began the success in the first event by winning the Hurdles easily (13.2s). the 1st places kept on coming with Joel Coulson in the Long Jump (5.33m), Jonathan Mitchell in the Shot (11.77m) and with Captain Eldon Myers completing a double win in the Discus (25.78m) and Javelin (31.69m). Eldon also helped Adam Evans, Jonathan Mitchell and Joel Coulson win the Relay for their age group and walk away with the boys Fastest
Relay Trophy.

All that remained was to crown the Overall Champions. Tunstall knew they had performed well enough during the day but English Martyrs had mostly dominated the Relay events so the final result was not a given. However, the teams efforts during the whole day payed off as they won back the Town Champions Trophy for 2010 by 23 points.

The teams performances and attitude, both on and off the track and field, were a credit to the College and we are very proud, as usual, of all their accomplishments.