ATHLETICS | Donnacha delivers gold again for Blackrock AC
Club endures a frustrating day at Drogheda cross country
Cross country was the order of the day over the last few weekends as a dedicated hardcore of long distance runners from Blackrock AC braved the elements to produce several notable performances.
Kearney and McBride Cup
Donnacha Hughes was in the medals again, delivering a gold winning performance at the Kearney and McBride Cup event hosted by Glenmore AC, before following it up by placing well in a huge field at the Leinster Championships.
Ciara and Aoife O’Brien were back racing again and both recorded top 10 finishes at Bush, as did Eoghan Smith who ran well in a tough race.
Rebecca Baldwin demonstrated her talent by collecting a bronze medal at the Glenmore event and produced the goods again at the Leinster Championships with an outstanding top ten finish against 151 other athletes in the girls U12 race to help the Louth team to third place overall.
Sean Reilly collected a silver medal for his efforts as part of the Louth U12 team at the Leinster Championships, finishing inside the top 20 out of a field of 121 runners, whilst Dillon Rowland, Grace Reilly and Oisín Hughes battled hard to place well in their respective races at the same event.
Cross Country Relays
On Sunday last, the club entered four teams at the inter club cross country relays hosted by Drogheda and District AC.
The day was kicked off by the girls U10 quartet of Megan McEvoy, Caoimhe Doherty, Ailish Fee and Grace Reilly who all ran their hearts out only to come up just short in fourth place, setting an unfortunate precedent for the races ahead.
The same fate befell the boys U10 team who looked good early on after being led out by Dillon Rowland who handed over to Oscar Conway.
James Scanlon took up the baton for the third leg and he passed it on to Jack Greene who ran bravely only to be pipped for third place by a fast finishing Glenmore runner in the last few meters.
It was always going to be tough for the girls U12 team who fielded three U11 athletes in their team but despite this each member ran their respective legs in fine style.
Rebecca Baldwin led from the front, capably supported by Emmy Jeytoo, Sarah Branniff and Erin Finnegan but another frustrating fourth place finish was recorded.
It was left up to the boys U12 team to see if they could break the hoodoo but it was always going to be tough in an extremely competitive race.
Cormac Broe got things off to a steady start by passing on to Eoghan O’Brien who kept the momentum going before handing over to Ethan Doherty.
Ethan blazed around the course in fine style sending Sean Reilly off on the anchor leg with an outside chance of a podium finish.
As expected, Sean pushed as hard as he could but it wasn’t enough to close the gap on the leaders and another fourth place was logged in the results bulletin to round off a frustrating day for the club.
It was a case of so near yet, so far for Blackrock’s teams on the day but hopes still remain high as Sean Reilly and Rebecca Baldwin will battle for honours with Team Louth at the All-Ireland Championship to be held in Abbottstown at the end of the month.
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