Quartet star at schools championships

In the Year 6 girls’ race, Mansfield’s double cross country county champion Beth Hamilton had a superb run to finish 49th in 9:02.

Teammate Alex Foster was 108th in 9:32 out of nearly 250 finishers.

In the boys’ race the fast-improving Jake Orr was 108th in 8:51 followed by Matthew Young, 179th in a 9:30 as around 250 youngsters completed the event. Young did well to qualify as he is a Year 5 pupil and he fell at the start.

At the Home Countries international in South Wales, Alex Rieley, who represented the Midland Counties Under 20s, was 28th overall.

On the roads, the club competed in the Midlands men’s 12-stage road relays and the ladies’ six-stage relays at Sutton Park, Sutton Coldfield —the first time for several years Mansfield had fielded complete teams in both events.

In the the ladies’ race, two long legs and four short, the team was 37th. Bev Armstrong and Helen Jones ran the longer legs in 39:23 and 39:33. The short legs were run by Kahli Johnson 21:48, Helen Pritchett 23:32, Amanda Shaw 28:17 and Jemma Arbon 28:39.

In the men’s race — four long and eight short legs — Harriers were 35th. Chris Allcock led the team in 32:13 followed by Mark Johnson 32:02, Nigel Watkin 35:28 and Martin Fickling 34:44. The short legs were completed by Jack Cooke 20:03, Garry Hodgkins 20:59, Chris Monk 18:29, Sam Bradley 19:01, Andy Wetherill 18:06, Jordan Boam 18:27, Dave Robertson 25:30 and Graeme Baguley 24:16.