Woodford Green Athletics Club hosted the first Metropolitan League race of the season on Saturday with both the Men and Ladies teams finishing third overall.

In the Senior Men's race, Martyn Cryer led the way and was the first man back in 16th place.

Jordan Donnelly (21st) was Woodford’s second athlete and he was immediately followed by Tom Philips in 22nd.

The next man in was Bertie Powell who recovered well from a slow start to finish 26th before Kevin Murphy (27th), Darren Southcott (37th), Harold Wyber (39th) made the top 40.

James Stockings (41st) and Angus Holford (46th) were close behind while Gareth Cavell (79th) finished five places higher and 30 seconds faster than his performance last year.

Rob Wilbraham had a good run, improving from the 146 at the Stevenage race last year to 116th in this opening Met.

Ray Dzikowski, a member of our recent gold medal winning M50 team in the Southern Road champs, should have closed the twelve in 120th, but due to a processing error by this manager it meant that was done by Joe Everitt.

The A team therefore finished with 12 in 130 and were third in the table, giving up 207 points to Highgate and 129 to Serpentine.

In the Women's race eight ladies turned out to contest their first event of the season and were rewarded with an excellent third place.

New member Gemma Coe put in a great run to finish fifth while coming in almost together were Emily Moss (13th) and Kat Gundersen (14th).

Veteran Bernadine Pritchett did well to come 24th before Maxine Davies (48th), Anne Gombert (58th), Jenny Thomas (68th), Alex Wardle (82nd) and Karen Horswood (105th) closed the team's efforts.

The result of the day in the youth races came from Canaan Solomon who won the Under-15/17 Men's event with a strong finish which saw him catch and pass two Enfield & Haringey runners in the last 150m.

Solomon crossed the line in 15.32, which meant he was victorious by two seconds.

Isabella Hoy showed she wasn’t daunted by moving up from the Under-13s with a fine third place in the Under-15/17 Women's age group.

Hoy finished in 16.26 and 12 seconds behind was Anna Clark who grabbed a determined fourth place.

The club’s other single figure placings came from Alicia McArdle who came ninth in 16.55, Alfie Poole who finished eighth in the Under-13 Boys and Kyesha Robinson, who also ended up eighth in the Under-13 Girls.

In the Under-15/17 Men's race, the club fielded ten finishers and therefore two complete teams.

After Solomon's first place, Woodford had to wait less than two minutes before Daniel Rowden (24th) and Perry Rowan (26th) came home with James Wakefield in 36th, closing the team. The team performance of the day was from the Under-13 Girls who finished with four in 20, narrowly ahead of Shaftsbury’s girls who had four in 32.

The Under-15/17 Women closed out with four in 13 for a score of 29 and might reasonably have expected to win on the day but TVH with four in 11 just nipped in ahead.

Jodi Ratcliff in 13th closed the U15/17W team score, following up closely on Hoy’s third, Anna Clark’s fourth and Alicia McArdle’s ninth placings with only 49 seconds covering the four of them.

The Under-13 Girls team were led home by Kyesha Robinson in eighth.

Mia Hirons was nine seconds down in tenth after completing the first lap in fourth.

Megan Caswell (18th) and Millie Finch in 20th closed the team's afternoon.