RUGBY and Northampton Athletic Club’s senior men put in the showing of the day in the 2019 County Cross-Country Championships at Abthorpe on Saturday.
The senior men’s group finished with six scorers to win by 53 points to mark their best result at the championships, with second to fifth places all being taken by Rugby and Northampton’s Joshua Lay (31.59), Dominic Jones (32.01), William Gardner (32.15) and Haydn Arnall (32.49).
Muss-Ab Hassan, Adam Searle and Jack Bond all came within the top ten in seventh, ninth and tenth place respectively.
The club claimed seven individual titles and eight team titles on the day, with the first of those coming in the U11G event, Jemima Cooper crossing the line with a time of 10.18, whilst Katie Enefer (10.51), Jessica Lamb (11.09), Ella Walls (11.39), Matilda Jones (11.40) and Stephanie Longden’s impressive times claimed the team victory.
Ollie Walls (9.12) came first in the U11B race, whilst in the U13G and U13B races Ella Darby (12.18) and Olivia Willison (12.38) finished in first and third and Arthur Tilt (10.58) and Ollie Buchan (11.19) crossed the line in first and second in the boys’ event.
The U15B event was a huge success for Rugby & Northampton as Lewis Panter (16.04), Finlay Ward (16.18) and Finbar Myers (16.34) completed the first three places, whilst Amelia McMurtrie (18.49), Lucy Stevens (19.12), Abigail Pearce (19.52) and Holly Walker (20.52) were key in claiming a team victory in the U17G event after finishing second, third, fourth and fifth respectively.
In the U17M race, Fergus Scott (19.36) and Joseph Vaughan (19.52) finished first and second, Scott completing a fast time in the process, while over in the Senior Women and the U15G categories, the club finished second and third.
Bethan Goddard (23.45), Poppy Carmichael (24.05) and Sophie Wilkinson-Hargate (25.56) ran well in the senior women’s event, while Claudia Searle (18.42), Abigail Thayanithy (21.30) and Isobel Haynes (23.54) also put in strong showings in the U15G event, capping off a superb start to Rugby & Northampton’s new year.
