The Striders Juveniles had another great day out, in the Adamstown winter sunshine today, at the Wexford Juvenile Cross Country Relay Championships. In addition to having great athletes, their parents deserve a special mention today, as their help and support allowed us to field a remarkable 44 athletes, in 11 teams.
The U10’s got us off to a great start, both winning county silver medals. Orlaith Ryan, Aoife Wall, Isabel Haberlin and Katelyn Corish were our flying girls team. Charlie Flood, Charlie Power, Eoin O’Brien and the fast finishing TJ Murphy, with super-sub Billy Carney, made up our boys team. These guys all did really well, considering it was the first cross country event for some and even the first ever competition for others.
We came close to fielding a GU12 team, with Sarah Lillis, Hannah Carney and Kate Corcoran all available for selection. All girls were great on the day and helped the coaches with the warm-up, for the younger teams. The eight U12 boys were split into two teams and they performed really well, more or less finishing together, in second and third places. It’s quite rare for club to win multiple medals in this format, especially the very competitive younger age groups. So a big well done to Maitiu Wall, Roan Kavanagh, Donagh Grennan, Fionn MacEochaidh, Liam O’Brien, Gearoid Byrne, Dylan Galvin, Daniel Redmond and Harry Power, who have all improved so much with Emma and Sonya’s training group.
Suin Brennan was the star of the GU14 team, who won silver, by slotting in, at late notice, allowing us to field a team. Despite competing in one of the biggest fields of the day, the team of Suin, Ava Kehoe, Maeve Burke and Heather Costello were always well positioned and it was no surprise to see these talented ladies do so well. Our first win of the day came courtesy of the BU14 squad of Eanna Grennan, Max Murphy, Sean O’Brien, Sam Myers and Eoin Hannan. With the leg distances up to 500m, Max led this team off to a great start and the boys won in some style.
In the U16 age group, we had five teams, who landed four medals. The girls squad of Ava Leacy, Cora Noonan, Gilliana Laforge, Keelin Juul Jensen, Isabel Bawden, Hazel Hickey, Aoife Lyng and Ellie Byrne made up two teams finishing second and fourth. Meanwhile our BU16 squad, who will soon attempt to successfully defend their national title, in this format, had the perfect result. Tommaso Hickey, Sean Lennon, Luca O’Connor, Eoin Shannon, Caolan Costello, Ben Myers, Cosmo Hewlett, Myles Hewlett, Aidan Kehoe, Finn Kelly, Will Park and Cael Colfer made up three Striders teams, to finish first, second and third.
The cross country relay format is a little challenging to organise, so thanks again to all parents for their patience and their support. However team medals are the most rewarding. Apologies to those parents and athletes who were available, but we were unable to make team for. The good news is that we will be needing everybody to help out in the coming months as we try to win the best-club trophies at some big upcoming events. Well done to all today and congratulations to our latest batch of Wexford medal winners.
