On Tuesday the 4th of October 2016 a number of our Dunboyne AC athletes were in action in the Saint Peter’s College colours in the opening schools cross country event of the season. The Geraldine Dolan Memorial Post Primary Cross Country is an annual meeting run by the ever friendly Saint Brigids AC in the hilly Ballinacree course outside Athboy.
Our club made up most of the minor girls team as Aoife McCormack joined the Fit for Youth contingent, namely Sarah Magee, Anna Griffin, Katie Greene, Doireann Ni Fhlatharta and Kate Reilly. 95 girls who made up twenty separate secondary school teams from near and afar battled it out for a place on the podium. Doireann Ni Fhlatharta stretched her unbeaten run at this venue to nine outings since the age of seven as she outran some of her regular rivals in the opening race of the day. Aoife had a gutsy run coming home fifth, Kate in tenth and Katie in the top twenty closely followed by Sarah and Anna who had top thirty finishes in this large field. Must to the disbelief of these hard working girls they were just squeezed out in the team event having to settle for silver as Loretto College Cavan took the first prize.
In the minor boys race Matthew Dolan and Oran McGovern joined the Leane twins on the Saint Peter’s team along with a few schoolmates. From the gun Conor took command of this race, stretching his lead over the other 110 athletes in this testing one kilometre race and collecting gold as an individual and leaving his team in a good position. Marc paced himself over the race before giving a final burst over the final quarter of the race to finish fourth and with Matthew and Oran digging deep this bunch of teacher’s pets took gold in the team event just to get one up on the female club-mates, in a race that had twenty two teams in search of the honours.
In the Girls Junior race Jessica Clarke who normally avoids competition showed her face, probably to get a day off school, and finished well up the field in her race to show she still has plenty to give (coaches will be nagging her mother to get her back competing). In the Junior Boys race Cormac McGinn and Conor McNally were in action, two athletes who, trying to avoid the attention of the clubs coaches as they lined out for Saint Peter’s College, both had a decent outing and will also be getting a knock on the door for upcoming club races.
Well done to all and fair play to Mr Murphy and the Saint Peter’s College staff for rallying the troops for this event.
