Harriers excel at Somerset Schools Championships – 13 selected for Somerset Schools team

There were some fantastic runs by Harriers/Olympiads competing for their schools at the County Schools Cross country Championships held at Taunton racecourse on Saturday. There were a couple of individual winners including Emily Smith in the Minor girls and Nicola Morgan in the Senior Girls whilst there was a further five Harriers claiming podium positions and over a dozen have now been selected to compete for the Somerset schools team at this coming weekend’s South West Schools Championships.

Early in the proceedings, the Minor girl’s race for Year 7s saw two of the Harrier girls dominate from the start and run together side by side until the final 100m when Emily Smith’s finishing sprint was just enough to cross the line a stride ahead of Vera Assis. They were recorded with the same finishing time of 6.45.Both had competed successfully the previous week at the hillier South of England Championships and found the flat Taunton racecourse circuit to their liking. Emily from Pennard and Vera from Shepton Mallet are two of the Club’s strong u’13 girls squad. The 3^rd runner home in this Minor girls race was some distance behind

Another member of that U’13 girls squad, Kayley Kennedy of Cheddar, a year older than Emily and Vera, competed in the Junior Girls race for Year 8 & 9 students and finished 4^th overall, 1^st Year 8 girl. Kayley ran a very composed race against her older rivals and steadily pegged back most of the field to come through at the end. In the same race, Jess Wood finished in an excellent 8^th place. In the Minor Boys race, Matthew Cole stormed away on the first lap and looked strong but tired a little on the 2^nd of the three laps and was passed by 5 other runners before recovering to launch a final sprint for the line and finish 3^rd overall. Curtis Stevens was next Harrier home in 6^th place and James Todd also ran well in this race with his position to be confirmed.

In the Junior boys race for Year 8 & 9s, Cameron Rafferty, George Harris, Tristan Goldsmid and Callum Batten all ran well. George and Cameron ran side by side for most of the first lap in the leading group of five before it began to break up with Cameron coming home in 4^th place and George 6^th. Not too far behind was Tristan just out of the County team selection in 16^th place.

In the Inter-girls race for Year 10 & 11 students, Leighanna Chappell in particular ran a well judged race. She worked with team-mate Justine Bowers for the first two laps before picking up the pace and pegging back the leading two girls who had got well away, to catch one of them and finish in overall 2^nd place, 14.46,with Justine not far behind in 4^th, 15.08, and with Lizzie Hart close behind in 8^th place 16.01. In the inter boys race, Alex Wiltshire was 3^rd in 18.50, Ben Venus was 5^th and Tom Thick 10^th for all three to seal their places in the Somerset team for next week.

In one of the final races, in the senior girls race Nicola Morgan carried on her form of the winter with an assured performance, running away from the rest of the field on the three laps and never looking back. This was despite her tough run of the previous week where she had finished 12^th in the u17 race at the tough south of England Championships.

The thirteen Harriers named in the Somerset Schools team for Saturday’s championships at Gloucester are: Minor Girls – Vera; Minor Boys – Matthew & Curtis; Junior Girls – Kayley & Jess; Junior Boys – Cameron & George; Inter Girls Leighanna, Justine & Lizzie; Inter Boys – Alex, Ben & Tom; Senior Girls – Nicola. Unfortunately the Minor Girls winner Emily Smith is away out of country and won’t be able to take up her place. Good luck to all of them. This means that the Harrier squad to travel to the Gwent XC League fixture at Brecon on the same day will be without many of the juniors!