Craughwell AC's U11 Cross Country Squad

Craughwell AC’s athletes had a fantastic weekend of cross country action – with Peter O’Sullivan yet again gaining selection for the Irish Masters international team with a top notch performance to place 34^th in the prestigious Gerry Farnan cross country and second in the O35 category while Martin Corcoran placed 6^th in the O45 category.

Meanwhile at Loughrea AC’s grounds in Loughrea, Craughwell AC’s juvenile athletes put in a remarkable series of performances to dominate the second day of the Galway cross country championships – taking victory in the boys U11, U13, U15 and U17 team events, gold and bronze in the U11 girls team event and bronze in the U13 girls team event as well as individual gold and silver in the U11 boys, individual bronze in the U11 girls, gold and bronze in the U13 girls, silver in the U15 boys 3000m and U17 girls 3000m, and gold and silver in the U17 boys 5000m.

It was a remarkable sequence of performances with many many highlights – none more so than the incredible runs from the Noonan triplets who all stepped up an age from the U12s to the U13s and put in terrific performances with Patrick taking individual 3^rd place over the 2000m distance, Sean not far behind in 8^th place and Catherine placing 19^th and 3^rd scorer on the Craughwell U13 girls team. Read on for a full report on all races.

As with 2 weeks ago, the course was in impeccable condition for the races and had the added benefit of lovely sunshine.

The day kicked off with the U11 girls 1000m where Jane Trehy had a fine run to place 3^rd in the U11 girls’ race. Jane was followed closely by Aoife Leahy 4^th, Sarah McCartin 7^th and Jennifer Hughes 9^th to give the club the team victory by a margin. Sarah had to battle hard in the chute to keep her place with pressure from opposing teams.

The club’s strength in this age group was underlined with Ailbhe Miskella placing 11^th, Eva Kelly 15^th, Bryna Milton 16^th, Sarah Woods 17^th, Caoimhe Dalton 19^th, Sinead Keane 23^rd and Ruth Dillon 28^th. When the team scores were totted up, this placed the club’s second team in the medals also taking the bronze medals narrowly ahead of East Galway.The U11 boys repeated this dominance in their 1000m, with Sean Cannon racing to glory to take the individual gold medal, chased into the chute by Finbar McFadden who took the silver. Finbar was followed closely by Phelim McCann who placed 4^th in his first race for the club, Kody McCann in 10^th, David Lee 11^th, Ryan Gallagher 16^th, Conor Roberts 25^th and Dylan Fowler 30^th. Craughwell took the team title with 18 points, ahead of a strong GCH team on 24 points.

The U13 girls 1500m was one of the toughest races of them all but the girls really excelled themselves with a set of bronze medals led home by Rachael Hughes in 9^th place, Sinead Kennedy 12^th, Catherine Noonan 19^th, Fiona Commins 20^th, Tara Farrell 21^st and Aoife Raftery 22^nd.

In the U13 boys 2000m, Oisin Lyons continued his rich vein of cross country form with a fine victory ahead of Ballinasloe’s Shane Jennings who is top class athlete having medalling in both National cross country and track last year and this year. Patrick Noonan had an incredible performance to take individual bronze, only being passed by the Ballinasloe athlete in the final 200m. Patrick was followed home by Jerry Keary 6^th, Sean Delaney 7^th, Sean Noonan 8^th, Dean Callanan 11^th, Conan McCann 14^th, Brian McKermitt 15^th, Cathal Walshe 16^th, Brendan O’Keefe 20^th and Luke Roberts 24^th.

In the U15 girls 2500m, Aoife Greene put in a tremendous performance to take 9^th place having stepped up an age. This was Aoife’s best race in a long time, pacing herself well right from the start and finishing very well amongst these older girls. Unfortunately Dearbhaile Walshe had to withdraw with injury in the same race.

A tough U15 boys 3000m saw our U14 team step up an age to join with our U15s. A long battle saw James Cahalane and Matthew Barrett battle it out in the top 4 with James taking 2nd place and Matthew placing 4th. James Delaney put in one of his best runs to date over the country with a 7th place finish, followed by Brian Loughnane 8th, Diarmuid Harvey 9th and Andew O'Boyle 11th to easily win the team title.

Ciara Greene was the club's only competitor in the U17 girls 3000m and ran a stormer of a race, taking 2nd place behind GCH's Maedhbh Brannigan.

In the U17 boys 5000m, Craughwell's elite young men put in a series of superb performances with Jamie Spellman landing the Galway title followed by Conor Gillen in 2nd place. Damien O'Boyle ran strongly to take 4th place, with Matthew Moran 5th and Keelan Ryan 6th. There was some concern when Nicholas Sheehan had to withdraw midway through the race with a very bad stomach cramp but thankfully it was not serious.

In the final race of the day, Paul Fitzpatrick ran strongly to take 4th place in the U19 boys 6000m, not far off the leading 3 GCH athletes.

Full results are on the Galway athletics website.