St Helens Sutton A.C.’s junior athletes performed well in the first round match in the North West YD League held at Leverhulme Park in Bolton.

Jessica Leonard set a new club Under17years 300m record, shaving a tenth of a second off Caroline Morley's eleven year old record, to record 42.6secs for an excellent win.

In the U20yrs men's competition Luke Towers had two fine runs to win the 3000m. (9 min.48.1.) and the 2,000m steeplechase, the former after doing all the hard work.

Tom McKeever achieved three personal bests in the javelin eventually achieving 47.50m.with Ethan Bell winning the B event with 44.58m.

Taylor Caton-Hand won the long and triple jumps (6.36m and 13.11m respectively). Jonathan Causer took the discus with 28.46m and shot (9.66m.) and there were promising debuts for George Asson who won the 100m. in 12.1secs and Lachlain Fisher who competed in the 200m, 400m and long jump (2nd, 3.80m.) first time out.

Bethany Baxter surprised herself with a win in the U20 women’s shot putt (8.01m.) before running a tactically aware relay which allowed Jessica Leonard to have a warm-down run on the final circuit. The McGoldrick twins scored a double-first in the 800m. (Maria 2 min.38.0 secs,, Rachel 2 min.40.3 .) Lucy Griffiths was second in the 200m and 400 while Louise Fairclough marked her U17s. debut at discus.

Olivia Harwood-Moss (2 min.42.5 secs.) and Alex Glynn (3 min.0.4 secs.) finished third in the U17yrs. A & B races, as did Maddie Williams who ran her usual agressive race over 1500m. (5 min.32.5 secs.) Emily Roberts was just pipped for first place in the B event.

In the 4x100m relays, the U17yrs. women’s team of Maddie, Alex, Louise and Emily took third place in 64.2 secs.

The women’s U20yrs. team of Bethany, Jessica, Maria and Lucy were second in 55.7sec the men’s U20yrs. team of Jonathan, George, Taylor and Lachlan were third in 49.3 secs.

The U20yrs. women’s team of Bethany, Rachel, Maria and Jessica won the 4x400m relay with their time of 4 min.52.4 secs.

The overall result at the end of a pleasing day was that the club finished in third place with a total of 293 points.