Cross Country Report
Knox/Cranbrook Invitation, UpJohn Park, Saturday 18 May 2024
Well, the time had come to stop speculating and see where we are ‘actually at’ in the 2024 Cross Country Season last Saturday. Conditions were great at our regular haunt of UpJohn Park, and the boys seemed excited to put their best foot forward in the first competition run of the season. We ended the day with some promising performances and also realising we have plenty of work to do should we wish to hoist the Emery Trophy again come season’s end.
The Juniors lead us out strongly, with Toby Ward back this week to run alongside Henry Grieve toward the front of the pack for the duration of the race. Henry started a little more conservatively than Toby and closed in on him as the race progressed. They eventually ended up alongside each other, and they then pushed each other brilliantly in a fine display of team running. Toby prevailed at the line over his younger teammate to secure a solid 19th overall to Henry’s 20th, 7th and 8th, respectively amongst the GPS. I’m convinced these finishing positions will drop as the season unfolds! Archie Watson continues to be a reliable member of the age group and closed in on George Harvey throughout the race and squeezed past on the last lap. George was not the slightest deflated, nor should he be, and continued to push hard to hang onto Archie. They ended up 37th and 41st overall, 17th and 18th in the GPS, securing another solid team result of 3rd, only 1 point adrift of King’s in 2nd, yet with some work to do to catch Scots who were well ahead amongst the GPS Schools. Another notable result came from Leon Field, who jumped five places at the finish in his new kicks! Nice! I also liked the pre-race advice to the Juniors from Senior Cross Country stalwarts Bestic and Gilmour.
We were super excited to see what our Intermediates could do on their first competitive and point-scoring outing in 2024. We were certainly not disappointed as the team gelled well together. Jonty J stepped it up again last Saturday, once again leading his mates, his team, for the duration of the race as he placed 11th, oh so close to an overall Top Ten, to be 4th amongst GPS rivals. Will Bestic ran well in a cap as he tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to tame his exquisite coiffure and maintained better contact with Jonty as he was 16th, 6th GPS. James Warren and Ben Frantz were in an excellent in-school battle for pretty much the duration of the race, with James stepping on the gas as the finish line approached to be 22nd with Ben not far adrift in 28th. Mr Benn and Mr Friend supplied live scoring updates again trackside and were convinced we had done enough to secure the team win. Yet maybe it was the subtle light blue of King’s that allowed them to sneak under the radar of such sage spectators as they secured the win to our 2nd. Thankfully the gap was only 6 pts. Here’s looking to turn the tide next week!
Blow of blows came early Saturday morning with the news that our Captain Lachy Brown was sick in bed. Drat! Covid, in fact! Double drat! However, after the shock and disappointment of losing the ‘rock’ of recent Shore Cross Country successes, the Open lads did their best to run well and salvage what they could from proceedings! Ryan Gilmour led our assault on the
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UpJohn course and was in the hunt for pretty much the duration. A few Cross Country superstars just managed to sneak away from him at the end, yet he should be most pleased with his result of 6th overall, 4th GPS. James Bestic stepped it up from last week as he snuck ahead of gutsy and pleasingly reliable recruit Isaac L. In the absence of Lachy, it was left to the Intermediates ‘running up’, Tom Gray and Hugo Stewart, to complete our Open team result. Thankfully they were there, or it would have been super ugly. Tom started possibly a little too quickly, dropping a sub 3:30 first km and paid the price for his enthusiasm. He did regroup and finish solidly in 26th overall to complete our team result, with Hugo a bit further back in 39th. I’ve no doubt these two will improve hugely as the season continues. All they need is that one confidence building ‘I can do it’ performance. Unfortunately, Scots have skipped away from us in the Opens by a sizeable margin of 20pts. Though that may seem unassailable, we were in a similar situation last year and fought our way back! Well, the fight is certainly ahead of us, and thankfully, it is a long season, and anything can happen! I can’t wait either way, yet I’m already certain whatever happens, we will be proud of the performances and effort from the Blue Street Boys!
Shore Cross Country Machine of the Week
There were so many options for ‘Machine’ honours last weekend! As discussed at lunch on Monday and Tuesday by Shore Cross Country staff… We couldn’t, in the end, go past Isaac L whose fine performance ‘saved our bacon’ for seasonal aspirations in the Opens!
Good running,
Mr M Spratt
MIC Cross Country
Top image: Teamwork #2!