STATE LEAGUE FINAL DAY 1
TUESDAY 26 MARCH 2002

In a great start to the 2002 State League Finals, both the Men's and Women's teams finished the first day in second placed. In a thrilling finish to the day, the men's team claimed the lead in the final event of the night - the 400 metres, only to discover that Lane Harrison was controversially disqualified in the second heat for running out of his lane, so by our calculations we went from 7 points in front of Essendon to four points behind. Remarkably, the AV scorer, Frank, left with the scorecard before the last event so we were left to our own devices to determine the scores at the end of the night.

Despite a number of disappointments during the night, the men's team is in a great position to challenge for the premiership next week as this week's program is our weaker program on paper.

For the first time for several seasons it was great to see every spot on the team filled with athletes with a genuine chance of qualifying. It was always likely that we would struggle to qualify in every event and we just missed out in the javelin with David Featherston throwing 44.70 (qualifying 46.0), Lachlan Aspinall jumping 12.66 in the triple jump (qualifying 12.75), Dale Bickham running 4:05.4 in the second heat of the 1500 m (qualifying 4:05) and then I got disqualified in the 5000 m walk with just 700 m to go.

A full set of results is listed below, however highlights for the night were:

Ronnie Buckley producing our first hammer qualifier for the season with 43.40 for 5th.

The 100 m runners - Tim Williams, Braden Fraser and Mohamad Zeed finishing 1st, 2nd and 1st and then combining with Lane Harrison to win the relay in 41.82.

Joel Pocklington jumping 4.20 in the pole vault for second.

Graham Watt producing our first qualifying performance in the walk for the season with 24:54 for 7th.

David Featherston and Steven Hooker finishing 4th and 3rd in the 110 m hurdles after we had struggled all season to get a single qualifier in the event.

Paul Boxshall running his best time for the season (9:34.7) in the 300 m steeple for second with Kynan Dawes 4th.

Marty Duke running a fast 48.19 for second in the first heat of the 400 m and Tim Heron running the third heat with the flu to finish 4th in 50.76.

The women's team are comfortably in second position after the first day of competition, 38 points behind Bayside, however they still have a good chance of pegging back this ground next week if we can put our strongest team on the track.

With a great chance of winning premierships it is vital that we have as much support at Olympic Park next week to cheer on both teams to victory.

MEN

WOMEN