Athletes take their fine club form in to county action
Rugby & Northampton quartet Emer Wintsch, Poppy Carmichael, Amy Walker and Charis Hayes helped Northants to victory in the junior girls at the Anglian Schools Cross Country Trophy last weekend.
The girls took their fine club form into county action as they combined to help Northants to victory in their category and to second place overall at Abington Park, finishing ahead of Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire but behind overall winners Suffolk.
A time of 13:50 was enough for Wintsch to take fourth, with team-mate Carmichael 10 seconds and two places behind. Walker took 14th in a time of 14:25 while Hayes was 36th in a time just past the 15-minute mark.
Josh Lay (2nd, 14:55) and Adam Searle (4th, 14:58) both finished inside the top five in the junior boys but couldn’t haul Northants to the top of the pile as they were beaten by their Cambridgeshire counterparts in the junior boys.
Joe Musgrove (12th, 15:20), Ewan Roberts (21st, 15:36), Matthew Rushton (37th, 16.00), Cameron Roberts (40th, 16.05) and Matthew Chronicle (48th, 16.23) also represented the county in a competitive race.
R&N’s Ger Supple (41st, 13.00) finished just outside the scorers in the minor boys, ending as the seventh Northants athlete home, while Molly Williams (5th, 10.53) and Abigail Pearce (7th, 11.00) both secured top-10 finishes in the minor girls. Rosie Edmunds (17th, 11.35), Amelia McMurtie (53rd, time not given) and Olivia Reeves (66th, time not given) finished in the pack.
Jack Bond (9th, 21.54), Ben Musgrove (12th, 22.17) and Oskar Potomski (29th, 23.09) all scored for Northants as the county finished fourth in the intermediate boys. Kirsty Goddard (8th, 15.21) was the first Northants runner home in the female catagory, while Emma Bond (20th, 16.07) and Lily Carmichael (37th, 16.57) also scored as Northants finished fourth. Nicole Johnson (39th, 16.58) finished just outside the county top six, followed by Charlotte Murphy (43rd (no time given), Ciara Moore (45th, no time given) and Rhian Williams (55th, no time given).
A victorious Northants team were supported by Genevieve Roberts (27th, no time given), Katie Chubb (47th, no time given) and Sian Williams (59th, no time given) in the senior girls. Hizam Sheekh (49th) supported a Northants side that finished fifth in the senior boys.
Suffolk were winners of the overall team trophy, decided by the aggregate score across each county’s best six team results, with Northants finishing in silver medal position.
An exciting weekend beckons for R&N’s cross country athletes with the climax of the Birmingham and District, Midlands Women’s and West Midlands Young Athletes Cross Country Leagues.
R&N lead the way in five of the eight categories of the WMYACCL and will be hoping to celebrate winning some silverware on Sunday.
