Twelve children from St Mary’s represented Basingstoke at the finals of the Hampshire Schools Sportshall Athletics Competition on Monday 26^th March at the Eastleigh Leisure Centre. A popular event saw the top sixteen schools in the county compete, amassing a total of 192 children.

There were six track and six field events for both the girl’s and boy’s teams. While some children were taking part on the track, the others were completing their field events. Dan excelled in the javelin with a throw of 22.10m which put him securely in 2^nd place out of 32 children, in the same event Zach finished a creditable 6^th and Lucy 7^th. The chest push proved challenging for our pupils, nevertheless Isabel threw 6.65m to also finish 6^th. Our top scores in the target throw came from Archy 6^th, Charlie 8^th and Lily 11^th.

The jumps also proved to be demanding on our students, but in true spirit Dylan and Eddie performed well in the long jump finishing 2^nd and 5^th respectively. The speed bounce was another tough event but did not deter Charlie who finished 10^th and Lily 11^th overall.

There was no way of us knowing how we were doing as the track results were based on time and no field events were given out.

Both teams worked hard in the running events with both the boys relay teams finishing in 5^th position and the girls 2 x 2 lengths 7^th. Our top result in the sprints came from Dan who gained 6^th place.

Overall St Mary’s ended the afternoon in 9^th place, with the boys attaining an outstanding 2^nd.

This was a fantastic event which the children thoroughly enjoyed and performed brilliantly. Well done to the whole team.