ATHLETICS: Club win 15 out of 22 titles on offer

NORTHANTS CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS 2017

Abington Park, Northampton

January 7

Rugby & Northampton AC dominated the Northamptonshire Cross Country Championships on home soil at Abington Park, Northampton when they came away with 15 titles out of the 22 on offer.

Kettering Town Harriers clinched five victories with one apiece from Corby and Birchfield.

Jonathan Goringe of KTH successfully defended his Senior Men’s title with exactly the same margin of victory as 12 months ago. His time of 32:31 over the 10k course saw him 22 seconds clear of Birchfield’s Rory Grant.

William Gardner of Rugby & Northampton duplicated his bronze medal from last year in 33:30, but he had the honour of leading home the host club, who won the team competition for the 20th time as either Phoenix/R&N, which dates back to their first victory in 1985 at the same venue.

The scoring six consisted of Dominic Jones (4th in 33:47), Phil Melling (6th in 34:45), Robert Male (10th in 35:22), Adnan Haq (13th in 35:58) and Ben Musgrove (14th in 36:35).

Musgrove took silver in the U20 Men’s race behind new champion Edward Cannell of KTH (35:42) with defending champion Jack Hope (KTH ) in third on 36:47.

Nicole Roberts of Birchfield won her first Senior Women’s crown when completing the 10k distance in 37:27. She was followed home by Corby’s Rebecca Hall on 38:24 and Kelly Barnett of Wellingborough with 39:55.

The sole Corby victory came courtesy of the Senior Women’s team who hadn’t won this title for 21 years and backing up Hall in the team were Alexandra Bell (42:09) and Sarah Baxby (44:10).

In fourth place overall Claudia Nevett of KTH took the U20 title in 41:08.

R&N’s Adam Searle had a good win over Kettering’s Fynn Batkin in the U17 Men’s race over 6k.

He was 25 secs ahead when he crossed the line in 19:51. With Joe Musgrove in third (20:46) and Muss-Ab Hassan fourth (20:48) this ensured R&N won the team title.

The host club had another win with Amy Walker in the U17 Women’s event. Her time of 23:50 for 6k was the biggest wining margin of the day over the Corby pairing of Eloise Coombs (24:54) and Selina Scott (25:17).

It was Kettering though, that took the team honours with Sophie Moss (4th in 25:31), Amy Robinson (5th in 27:14) and Harriet Jolley (6th in 27:57).

The expected victories came in both the U15 races with Adam Caulfield of R&N recording 16:50 over the 5k route to win the Boys race by 30 secs from KTH’s Dylan Bowley and Banbury’s Skip Snelson (17:42). Backing up Caulfield in fourth was Ben Hope on 17:59 and Tobias Heayns (6th in 19:34) for another R&N team win.

Schools International representative Emily Williams of KTH took a commanding lead in the Girls race and at the finish had almost a minute advantage over 5k with a time of 19:14. She was followed home by the winning team of Rugby & Northampton’s Molly Williams (2nd in 20:10), Holly Walker (3rd in 20:49) and Lucy Stevens (4th in 21:00).

The host club also swept the board in the U13 and U11 events winning all eight titles.

A clean sweep of medals was achieved in the U13 Boys 3k race when Noah Bennett clinched the title with 9:34 to be closely followed by Louis Buttrick (9:42) and Aidan O’Brien (9:44).

Claudia Searle won the corresponding Girls race in 10:10 and was backed up in the team by Olivia Williams (6th in 10:53) and Alice Bates (7th in 11:13).

Emily Hinton of Silson AC took individual silver on 10:22 and Wellingborough’s Lucy Watts the bronze (10:31).

The U11 Boys favourite Arthur Tilt duly won his event in 6:01 from Kettering’s Lucas Rogers on 6:22. The winning R&N team over the 2k course was completed by Lewis Robson in third (6:39) and Louis Starr ( 4th in 6:46).

Alice Bennett made no mistake in winning the Girls event by 18 secs from Silson’s Ella Darby on 6:37 with bronze medal winner Olivia Willison (7:01) and Amelia Cebak just one second behind in fourth sealing the team victory.