In-form Mansfield Harriers complete North Midlands League with a flourish

Harriers were back at the venue where they had excelled in the County Championships the previous weekend and the largest number of athletes to race for the club in this league over the four events turned up for a final push.

Glory certainly came to Mansfield's men as they won both the Senior and Masters team awards for the series with both winning the final fixture.

After a phenomenal series, Alex Hampson took the Senior individual title, Brad Caress placed sixth and in the Masters 45 Wayne Lowe finished in fifth.

Looking strong throughout the race Alex completed his fine series with a second place for the men with Paul Wright third, Lewis Boswell 16th, Jordan Boam 25th and Brad Caress 32nd to complete the scoring team with great support from Richie Talbot 41st and Drew Hurst 56th.

Chris Patterson joined the club at the start of the winter and he has already become a massive asset to the team.

Although he lost a shoe on the challenging course, he dug in to place 15th in the combined race, closely followed by Dan Nugent 19th and, returning after illness, Dan Wheat 36th to close the team. Strength in depth in the masters age group had Dave Cass 51st, Matt Bottomore 59th, Dave Savage 60th, Jamie Macintyre 84th, Wayne Lowe 107th, Andy Walker 114th and Stuart Whysall 136th.

Over the last 12 months the club's ladies have gone from strength to strength and after a superb County Championships they produced another terrific team performance.

Going into the race in third they put on a superb display to win on the day and finish second overall.

Libby Coleman has been superb for the club since her return as she put on a fantastic front running display to lead from gun to tape.

U20 Grace Manson is another in the form of her life as she placed seventh overall and first in her age group in the race with another who has seen significant improvement this winter in Paige Roadley, who was 15th.

Sophie Toyn placed 20th and took the overall second place at U20, Alice Mortiboy 29th and Hannah Jones 46th.

The Masters also had a strong season, finishing third overall with, on the day, Kirsty Huntington 31st, Helen Pritchett 53rd, Amanda Hardy 62nd, Sharon Armitage 75th, Sarah Bradbury 81st and Tina Copcutt 112th.

After a successful series Amanda won the Masters 60 age group, in the seniors Paige was fifth, Alice ninth, and in the Masters 40 Helen finished the series in third.

Maisy Slack has improved throughout the winter and the first year U15 athlete started her season with a sixth place finish at the opening race, but going into the last fixture was in third place overall.

Putting in the race of her athletics career she stormed to a clear victory and came away as league champion on countback.

The U15 team were placed second with the one fixture to go and put in a big effort to try to pull back the deficit which they did slightly.

But unfortunately it was not enough to take the team title after Maisy, Amelia Arbon placing fifth, Emily Pares eighth, Olivia Shaw 14th, Florence Kenney 14th, Leila Shaw 17th and Martha Walker 23rd plus 10th for the series.

In the U13 girls age group the club have put in power-packed performances all season.

And going into the last fixture Charley Whysall was a clear individual leader with Isla Millns third and the team holding a comfortable lead.

One final push saw Charley place third and Isla fifth on the day to confirm the individual awards, and with Olivia Wright seventh and Isla Jones eighth the team came away with a clear series win.

Ed Sankey is another who had a consistent winter as he placed second on the day and second individually at the U17 age group with Will Sankey 11th.

In the U13 boys Teddy Macintyre put in an amazingly brave run. Starting the season with two seventh places, he has ground out a fantastic spell of training and front ran virtually all of the race, only being caught in the final straight as he placed second, which was without doubt his best race in a Mansfield vest, also placing fifth overall.

The fast improving first year U13 Will McClemens placed 17th.

U15 boy Jack Pares is another who has shown great improvement throughout the series, placing 13th in the first race and winding his league season up with a superb third place, ably supported by Oliver McClemens in 13th, Oliver Buglass 19th and Joel Harby 22nd.

Jack finished the series in sixth and Oliver eighth.

In the U11 age groups Jack Whysall and William Kenney both put in season's best performances with Jack 11th and William 15th with Jack also sixth for the season.

Catherine Rivas and Esme Evans finished the league in fine style, placing fifth and sixth respectively with Esme fifth for the season.

It was a fine display just a week after Harriers went to the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Cross Country Championships and came away with an unprecedented nine team wins plus three silver and four bronze medals, also taking gold team medal in every female race and had six gold, seven silver and seven bronze individual medals plus numerous athletes earning selection to represent the county at the Inter-Counties.