The Wells City Harriers team have once again swept all before them at the 2010/11 Gwent Cross Country League and the Senior Men’s and u13 boys’ teams were crowned overall League champions after the final fixture. The 4th match of the season was held at Swansea on Sunday March 13th and there were over 30 of the Harrier team competing. A team celebration is to be held on Saturday April 9th at the Quarry Inn, Keinton Mandeville 1pm-3pm.
Headlines following that final fixture are:
- Senior men are champions of Division 1 (winning Div 1 at first attempt!)
- u13 boys team are champions: Luke Prior 2nd, Sam Sommerville 5th Oliver Dickenson 9th & James Bridge 10th overall
- u13 girls team was 7th overall
- u15 girls team was 3rd overall: Rebecca Carver 5th; Abigail Gibbons 7th overall
- u15 boys team was 5th overall
- u17 men’s team was 5th overall: George Harris 5th & Sam Harding 10th overall
- Chris Ellis was 5th overall amongst the novice boys
- Senior women’s team was 10th overall and 2nd in Division 2 and have now been promoted to Division 1: Katerina Prior was 8th F35; Anna Lewis 13th overall
- Jon James was top veteran and 3rd overall; Jack Bancroft was top u23 athlete & 8th overall; Senior men’s team manager Jon Gilling was 10th overall
- Rex Whitcombe 18th overall in V50
For the Senior men it was their fourth successive year of victory after entering the League in the bottom Division 4 back in 2007/08. Since then they have won each division to gain annual promotion and now stand as Division One Champions beating the likes of Westbury Harriers, Cardiff, Swansea, Bridgend, Bristol and Bath to be top club. The team was once again ably managed this season by Jon Gilling who has achieved a good turn out by a rotating squad of keen senior men across the 4 fixtures. One of the top Harrier performance on the day at Swansea and across the League as a whole was by Jon James, one of the Club’s senior coaches who finished in the top three athletes overall and was top veteran runner. Jack Bancroft was also celebrating being overall u23 champion.
For the u13 boys, the team was ably led in all 4 fixtures by Luke Prior who gained the accolade of being 2nd overall at the end of the season when he finished 4th in the final fixture, behind his team mate Sam Sommerville who swept to individual victory in this final fixture. Sam was 5th overall in the League despite missing one fixture due to other racing commitments for the Somerset schools team. In the same age group James Bridge was a great 9th, Johnny Ellis 16th and Jake Harris 17th for a great team effort.
In the u11 novice boys’ race, Luke Baker was 11th and Chris Ellis 21st. Chris thus gained a medal for being 5th overall from his 4 matches. In the u13 girls Charlotte Baker was an excellent 6th and with Amy Darcy in 14th that was some good running.
The u15girls team had a trio of Harriers out competing and they succeeded in ensuring that the team finished 3rd overall across the 4 fixtures. Rebecca Carver was 8th at Swansea, whilst Abigail Gibbons was next in 9th and Hayley Carver was a solid 29th. Likewise in the u15 boys there was a trio of good results with Matt Dickinson 4th, Matt Cole 6th and Philip Bridge 10th for some good top order packing. For the u17 men George Harris had his best Gwent League race so far this season with a 3rd placing, whilst Sam Harding also managed a top 10 finish with his 9th. Many thanks to Geoff and all team managers on the day.
For results of the final fixture and overall positions go to www.gwent-league.org.uk
Good luck to the 26 Junior Harriers that are competing at the English Schools XC Championships this coming Saturday, March 19th, at Nottingham. This is the highest number of juniors trained through the Wells & Yeovil combined Club to have reached this prestigious level in any one year.
We will celebrate all of the seasons achievements of our great squad of Wells & Yeovil cross country runners at an end of season gathering to be held on Saturday April 9th. Details to follow.