The Heaton Juniors Cross Country Team continue to go from strength to strength following a number of recent successes.
The recent Sherman Cup / Davidson’s Shield saw 13 junior athletes compete for both club championship prizes and points for the club in the respective competitions. The team had 5 top 10 finishers: Annie Lee (8th U13 girls), Matthew Smith (5th U13 boys), Yannick Haniffa (8th U13 boys), Ronnie Lee (10th U13 Boys) and Alex Smith (5th U15 Boys).
The U13 Boys’ team of Matthew Smith, Yannick Haniffa, Ronnie Lee and Adam Broughton finished in 2nd place in the team event only 3 points behind winners North Shields Poly. The U15 Girls’ team of Emily Daglish, Leila Burden, Hannah Baqir, Olivia Daglish and Freya McKinnon were 3rd placed team in their race. Both teams made significant points contributions to our club’s overall results.
Last weekend was the Northern Schools Inter-Counties Cross Country Championships at Middlesbrough where we had 5 athletes gaining county vests for Northumberland. Results were as follows:
Minor Boys: Yannick Haniffa (18th and 4th Northumberland runner); Henry Hardy (20th and 5th Northumberland runner)
Intermediate Boys: Alex Smith (15th and 3rd Northumberland runner); Joseph Brown (59th and 14th Northumberland runner)
Intermediate Girls: Leila Burden (63rd and 15th Northumberland runner).
Alex will now go on to run for Northumberland in the Schools National Inter-counties Cross Country Championship in West Sussex on 15 March and he has also been selected for the North Eastern Counties Team to run at the National Inter-Counties in Nottingham on 8 March. Unfortunately there is no National Schools Inter-counties race for the Minor Boys age group as otherwise Yannick and Henry would have been in strong contention for places due to them finishing in the top 6 Northumberland athletes.
Matthew Smith, Yannick Haniffa and Henry Hardy have also qualified for the National Schools Team Cross Country Championships and will represent their school at the event in Leeds on 1 March.
We now move on to Alnwick to close out the Harrier League Season and then will move on to the track for our second season in the NEYDL as a joint team with our friends at Tyne Bridge Harriers.
With new members joining all of the time and the junior section expanding, If anyone wishes to help with the junior coaching please let the junior coaching team know.
Jason, Aaron, Debbie, Iain and Andy.