HELENSBURGH Amateur Athletics Club’s young athletes recently travelled to the Ayrshire Athletics Arena in Kilmarnock to compete in the final match of the Central and Southern Scotland Athletics League.

Johnny Brown, Robert Court, Matthew Palmer and Matthew Wright made up the under-11 boys team competing in a mixture of long jump, 80m and 600m and also in the 4x100m relay. The stand out performance from the team was Johnny’s second place in the long jump with a distance of 3.38m.

For the under-13 boys there were four athletes for which this was their first track and field competition. Undeterred by the occasion Josh Bain won the shot putt competition with a fantastic throw of 7.22m with Christopher Wilson winning the B String competition with a 4.79m throw and later running well in the 100m finishing second overall.

Josh continued his winning streak in the high jump with an equal best jump of the day. The other two newcomers, Luke Godwin and Andrew Jackson Leach, showed potential in the 800m with a great race finishing second and fifth respectively.

The more experienced Duglas Miller ran the 100m whilst Callum Gray competed in the high jump and javelin. In the 4x100m relay Josh, Christopher, Duglas and Andrew narrowly missed out on another first place, being beaten on the line by only a quarter of a second.

A great day for the under-13 boys and hopefully an early indication of some good results to come in the future.

The under-15 boys were down on numbers so William Wright had a busy day competing in the shot putt and long jump and 800m and Finlay Gray coming second in the 400m and first in his favoured event, the 800m, with a time of 2:19. Finlay also competed in the high jump.

Evelyn Dennison was the only under-11 girl able to make this competition she had a full day, competing at long jump, 80m sprint and 600m.

The under-13 girls had a full team with Amy Court winning the 100m, gaining a new personal best of 14:02s, and also competing in the javelin and long jump events.

Amelia Murphy also ran the 100m and jumped well in the long jump. Katie Flett took on her less favoured event of shot putt along with her favourite track event, the 800m.

Sarah Mitchell had a busy day of throwing events competing in both the javelin and shot putt. All four girls also had a great run in the 4x100m relay.

For the under-15 girls Jennifer McBride took on the 100m and the javelin and narrowly missed a personal best in the shot putt. Chloe Murphy also threw in the javelin and shot putt but ran the longer 800m distance with Jessica Noble.

Jessica and Chloe both ran a great race, positioned first and second for much of the race before the competition realised they needed to react, pushing the HAAC athletes down into second and fourth respectively.

Fresh from competing in the triple jump at the Celtic Games the previous day, Alex Burns swapped her Scotland vest for a Helensburgh one and ran in the 100m and 300m before trying her hand at discus.

Showing her ability at all sprint, jumping and throwing events.

Natalie Stevenson was the only senior who attended, meaning she had a heavy burden of track events as she entered the 3000m, 400m and 800m, showing consistency by finishing second in each of her races.