With previous round of Shield Athletics cancelled due to extreme heat conditions and last week being a bye week due to the Junior State Championships, DAC athletes were itching to get back onto track racing for premiership points. Round 10 of the summer season was held at Lakeside Stadium with an early 8:30am start of competition.
The sprinters started the day well, with Kevin Rassool, Damian Di Donato, Wes Spargo, Alex Di Medio and David Mitchell all finishing in the top 6 positions for the Open Men’s 200m event. The Open Woman followed suit, with Courtney Yates, Georgia Feben, Maree Tunnecliffe, Nat Exon and the Lane sisters (Natasha, Mikaela and Kiandra) all finishing highly. In the 400m hurdles it was a battle of the heavyweights with the retuning former state junior – Wes Spargo up against the current state junior champion – Alex Di Medio. In a tight race, Wes took home maximum points with a time of 54.53sec. Steph Larkin also took line honors in the Open Womans event in a time of 69.66sec.
The distance squad followed up nicely, with Nick Finch and Campbell McLennan both finishing first and second respectively in the Mens Open 800m, but it was the girls that out classed the boys with Bronte Gange, Georgia Buckley, Nat Exon and Georgia Feben all finishing in the top 4 in the Open woman’s event. Bronte ran a spectacular time of 2:08.39min which shows she coming back into some great form. Charlotte Bassett and Jessica O’Keefe both finished first and third respectively in the U/16 girls 800m event.
With true Doncaster spirit, it was great to see the 3000m event flooded with the green and gold colours. Having 12 DAC athletes all lining up together really showed how strong the comradely around the club is. Ben Ashkettle took the overall win with a time of 9:09.2min with Ed Vining and Andrew Reddie not to far behind. Claire Walpole finished second in the Open Woman’s event with dynamic duo Charlotte Bassett and Jessica O’Keefe finishing in first and second in the U/16 girls event. To round out the track events; Maree Tunnecliffe, Breanna Large and Kristen Walburg all finished the 3000m walk to receive maximum points for their respective age groups.
In the Field events; Wes Spargo and Nick Finch dominated the Men’s triple jump to finish almost 2m of their nearest rival with multi eventers; Kiandra, Natasha and Mikaela Lane filling the podium positions in the Open Woman’s event. Jonathan Taylor won the Men’s U/18 High Jump with a leap of 1.80m, 15cm clear of second. Big man, Matthew Hapantidis cracked the 10m mark in the Open Shotput to win the event with Nat Exon out throwing Breanna Large and the Lane sisters to take maximum premiership points. Stephanie Ratcliffe won the U/14 girls shotput event with a throw of 9.06m. A similar story occurred in the Hammer throw event with Matthew and Stephanie both winning their respective age groups although Breanna took the win over Nat in a tight battle in the Open woman’s event.
With 2 rounds to go and DAC having 3 teams in premiership contention, we’re looking for strong performances to ensure as many teams make the State Shield Finals in April.