Mersey Marvels!

We really have just had a big weekend for local cross country runners. The final round of the Manx Gas Cross Challenge took place at Pulrose on Sunday, but the previous day a party of 19 athletes travelled to Arrowe Park on the Wirral to take part in the Merseyside Schools Cross Country championships.

A summary of individual performances is as follows:

Year 7 Girls (38 competitors)
5th - Alice Ashe

Year 8 & 9 Girls (43 competitors)
1st - Sarah Astin
3rd - Hannah Scarlett
19th - Maxine Smalley

Year 10 & 11 Girls (25 competitors)
2nd - Gemma Astin
9th - Rachael Franklin
11th - Rachael Johnstone
23rd - Leanne Garrett
(Team finished 4th)

Year 8 & 9 Boys (35 competitors)
8th - Nicholas Colburn
10th - Alex McQuarrie
13th - Nathan Pierce
15th - Anand Patel
26th - Jack Garrett
(Team finished 2nd)

Year 10 & 11 Boys (41 competitors)
13th - Michael Cherry
15th - Andrew Crennell
18th - Tom Kelly
33rd - Jamie Heaney
(team finished 5th)

Year 11 & 12 Boys (14 competitors)
4th - Louis Morris
5th - Sam Brand

There were obviously some terrific performances from the Isle of Man Schools runners, with yet another gold medal for Sarah Astin and a silver for Gemma Astin. However from looking through the results, my choice as the performance of the day would be Hannah Scarlett's brilliant 3rd place out of 43 in the Year 8 & 9 Girls race. Hannah has improved hugely this winter and I was most impressed with the way she ran in last month's Lancashire Championships. This was undoubtedly her best performance yet, and it will be interesting to see how she goes in the middle distance events on the track this summer. The course on Saturday was very short for the age group with a winning time of under 8 minutes, so this would suggest that Hannah has a lot of potential as a 1500m runner.

Excellent performances too from Louis Morris and Sam Brand in the Senior boys race. It would be good to see more of them both on the local athletics scene - they are rarely seen at local events these days.

No doubt several of the team will be receiving invitations to represent Merseyside Schools in the English Schools Championships on 8th March. This year's event is at Sefton Park in Liverpool, so it's within easy reach for the Isle of Man athletes. Let's hope plenty of them are selected!