Morpeth Harriers Mason Gaylor and Molly Roche win individual titles at the Northern Area Schools Cross Country Championships
Morpeth Harriers and KEVI pupils Mason Gaylor and Molly Roche both won individual titles at the Northern Area Schools Cross Country Championships on Saturday, which were held on a very muddy course at Sedbergh School in Cumbria.
The wins not only gave both titles, but also, barring injury problems, guaranteed them automatic places on the Northumberland bus for the English Schools National Cross Country Championships to be held at Sefton Park, Liverpool, on Saturday, March 14.
For Gaylor, competing in the Junior Boys, the win was even sweeter as he just managed to outpace one of his strongest rivals this season, Ollie Curran of Durham, to win by two seconds from the Darlington athlete for the first time.
Roche took the Senior Girls title by a 13 second margin over Durham’s Hatti Stead, who competes for Blackhill Bounder and is also a few months older than her.
The win for the KEVI Year 11 student, currently hard at work on the run-in to GCSEs in a few months’ time, followed the Under-17 North East title she won at Middlesbrough in December.
Other Morpeth athletes with good possibilities of places in the Northumberland squad for Liverpool are Senior Boy Ollie Tomlinson, Intermediate Girl Faye Heatley, and Junior Girl Heidi Wilkinson.
Tomlinson finished seventh in the Senior Boys event and was third counter in a second-placed Northumberland squad.
Heatley finished 10th, and was fifth home for a victorious Northumberland Intermediate Girls squad, the county’s only team win of the day.
Wilkinson was fourth counter in a third-placed Northumberland Junior Girls squad, when placing 15th.
Other members of Morpeth Harriers who made the long journey over the Pennines to Sedbergh were: Jack Dhawar (Junior Boys) (34th), Hector Ford Hutchinson (Minor Boys) (25th), and Luke Thompson (Minor Boys) (30th).
Closer to home, the North East Masters Athletics Association Cross Country Championships took place at the Rising Sun Country Park in Wallsend, with evergreen Gavin Bayne collecting the Over-70 gold medal. Morpeth’s O/65 team of Bayne and Over-70s Richard Sill and Paul Bentley picked up a team silver.
Lee Bennett was another winner on the day, picking up the Men’s O/55 medal with another fine performance on a very challenging course.