harriers do county proud in leicestershire

Saturday’s UK Athletics CAU Inter Counties Cross Country Championships, which also incorporated the final of the British Athletics Cross Challenge, was once again held at Prestwold Hall, the Grade 1 listed Stately Home near Loughborough in Leicester, seat of the Packe Family for over 360 years.
The Championships have been held at the venue since 2017, however on Saturday organisers decided to run the course in the opposite direction to previous years, which according to some competitors made it slightly tougher than anticipated, a difficulty made worse by heavy overnight rain which made the course a little muddier.
As usual a large contingent of athletes and supporters from the North East made the lengthy journey down the M1 for the event, although the region’s Team Managers Stewy Bell (Men), and Lynn Cooper (Women) were forced to make several squad changes at the last minute due to a large number of late withdrawals.
Nevertheless those who did fly the region’s flag on the day did their level best to achieve a number of honours.
Highlight of the day for the North East came in the very last event, when Gateshead Harrier Callum Johnson took the Senior Men’s title to add to the regional title that he won in December at Sedgefield.
He did it after overhauling Hampshire and Southampton’s Zak Mahamed on the final lap, to win by a margin of twenty-one seconds.
Amongst the North East athletes who competed on a well-represented day for the club, were nine members of Morpeth Harriers.
Best individual placing was that of North East Champion Millie Breese, who finished twentieth in the Under 17 Women’s race and led the region home to seventh team place.
Next best Morpeth individual was from the Senior Women’s section, where North East Champion Catriona MacDonald finished twenty eighth, and as second counter for a fifth placed North East Senior Women’s team. The team was led home by third placed Kate Avery of Shildon, who took an individual Bronze medal, the best regional individual Female performance on the day.
The Senior Women’s event was actually won by former Morpeth Harrier Mhairi MacLennan, who is also the recently crowned Scottish Champion. Mhairi won by an eight second margin from Reading and Berkshire’s Jessica Gibbon.
One of the finest individual performers on the day from Morpeth Harriers was William Devere-Owen, who finished forty sixth in the Under 17 Men’s event and helped the region to a set of Team Bronze medals by being their third counter. The region were led home by Houghton’s Brandon Pye, who narrowly missed an individual medal when finishing fourth.
Outside the scoring count however was Morpeth’s Bertie Marr, who was seventh finisher in 111th place, having suffered a fall during the event.
 Joe Dixon had also been scheduled to line up in the Under 17 Men’s event for the North East, however he was forced out by a late foot injury, a bitter blow to the squad.
The North East’s Under 15 Boys squad finished eleventh in their event, with North East Champion Ollie Calvert and Morpeth club colleague, another Ollie, Ollie Tomlinson, both managing to be amongst the scoring counts in 51st, and 59th places respectively, and as second and third from the region. Just missing being amongst the counters was Joseph Close, who finished in 95th place.
Sam Hancox of Morpeth was a late call up for the region’s Senior Men’s team, who were triumphantly led home by Callum Johnson, but unfortunately, the team could not repeat their previous habit of winning on this occasion.
They finished fifth, but Hancox was outside the scoring six in 86th place, only missing being a counter by ten seconds.
Unfortunately, the club’s Joe Anderson developed a bout of sickness in the morning and found it a big struggle to complete his run in the opening Under 20 Men’s event, where the North East squad finished in seventh team place. He still managed to complete, however, finishing in 151st place.
The North East did manage to secure Silver team medals in the Under 13 Boys event, however, as well as Bronze team medals in the Under 15 Girls and Under 20 Women, although unfortunately, no Morpeth Harriers participated in these three age group scores.