Superb showing from St. Peters AC at Louth championships

St. Peter’s Athletic Club hosted the Louth Novice and Uneven Age Louth Cross Country Championships last weekend in the excellent facility of the Louth GAA Centre of Excellence in Darver.

The day started with the Novice Women’s Race which was a keenly contested affair with a breakaway group of three which finished with St Peter’s, Niamh Brady taking the bronze medal.

The Juvenile Program kicked off with St Peter’s hosting a non-championship U8 race which provided spectators with two fantastic races and gave the young athletes a taste of what they can expect next year.

The Championship Juvenile Program commenced with the Boy's U9 race which saw Patrick McKeown claim his first Championship medal taking one of the first ten positions, this was followed by the Girl's U11 race.

The St Peter’s club had a team in this race that missed out narrowly on medaling, however, there were some great performances from Ellen McCourt her best in a long time, Aoibhe Kelly, Alexia King and Erin Ward.

The U11 race was all about St Peter’s Colm Duff, Colm led the race from the gun and from an early stage although having to deal with some good competition there looked to be only one winner and he didn’t disappoint the host club as he tore up the home straight to claim the County title and another Gold County Championship medal, Fionn O’Donoghue who is new to cross country running also made a very impressive account of himself over the challenging course.

The U13 Girl's race also provided great excitement for the host club as the girl's team battled through a really competitive race to claim the bronze team medals, the team was led home by the ever-consistent and hard-working Anna Kelly closely followed by Anna McDonnell, Sophie Callan and Aine Ward who was making her club debut.

The Boys U13 race had just three St Peter’s Athletes and all three gave their all, Noah McCormack James McCourt and Logan Devlin all three are improving with every race.

The Girl's U15 had just one St Peter’s athlete and of course, that was the ever-dependable Sadhbh Sheelan, this fine young athlete is improving all the time and with her attitude and temperament it is only a matter of time before results come her way.

The U17 and U19 girl's races were run together and the St Peter’s club had two athletes in the girl's race and both took home medals, Laura Duff running out of age showed great determination to hold off some stiff competition to take bronze in the girls U17 and Dearbhla Allen eased to Gold in the Girl's U19.

Next up is the Leinster Championships for uneven ages which will take place on Saturday in Tinahely, Co. Wicklow.