Dearbhla Allen exceling for St Peters with back to back Cross Country titles

Day two of the Louth Cross Country Championships took place in the fabulous Louth GAA Centre of Excellence in Darver. The event was hosted by St Peters AC and yet again there was large field of athletes in all the races and those in attendance were treated to Cross Country running of the highest order.

The host club enjoyed tremendous success, winning seven individual medals. The first of the juvenile Championship races was the girls U9. This race was ran over a 600M course.

The always eager Ellen McCourt had a super run and with a late surge put herself in the silver medal position. Abbie Murphy, who has just begun her Athletic career recently, had a very strong run and will be a force to reckoned with in the future.

The boys U9 race also had a St Peter’s AC athlete on the rostrum. Colm Duff, who is always in the business end of races, powered up the home straight to take silver. Cian McKinnion also performed well in the same race.

The girls U11 race saw the club have two athletes that really gave their all. Ella Murphy started really well and held her position throughout and Sabina Zenderowska, who would prefer track running, had her best ever Cross-Country run and is a great example to her fellow athletes.

Cian Logan and James McCourt both made great accounts of themselves running out of age in the boys U11 race.

The girls U13 event had a St Peter’s team that was led home by Niamh Allen, closely followed by Sadbh Logan, who had a great last lap. Saidbh Sheelan had another strong run, closely followed by Tatiana Zenderowska.

The boys U13 race was a great battle for the minor medals. Liam McKeown had his best run yet, digging deep to pull clear of his competitors to claim the silver medal which was richly deserved for his courageous run.

The girls U15 race was a keenly contested affair, Deirbhile Morgan taking great encouragement from her run last week moved up an age and put herself in contention from the start. This was Deirbhile’s best ever performance and was really impressive coming in to take a well-earned bronze medal.

Deirbhile was well supported by the very capable O’Reilly twins, Emily just missing out on an individual medal, with Hannah close behind her. The three girls had a great run and were rewarded with the silver team medals.

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Donnacha Reidy made his return after a short injury lay off when he ran in the boys U15 race, having been unable to run in his own age group the previous week.

Although Donnacha finished outside the medals, he can take great encouragement from getting around the course and will now take his place in upcoming Leinster U14 race.

The girls U17 race once again led to an emphatic victory by the inform Dearbhla Allen, who followed up on last week’s U16 victory by taking gold again here, making it a double Gold for her for the second year running.

Niamh Brady led out the girls U19 race from the start and her lead was not to be relinquished as she pulled well clear to take the Gold medal.

Sean Reilly, who has enjoyed a brilliant track season, proved that he can do it on the Cross Country fields also with an unbelievable finish in the boys U17 race to finish with a very strong last few KM to take silver in the boys U17 event.

The final race of the day saw Cian Gorham, who has just recovered from a long lingering injury, have a very strong run in the boys U19 race.

This was a really pleasing race for Cian, as he ran really strong and it was obvious for all in attendance that he had improved massively since the previous week’s run and was now pain free.

Hopefully he can continue to improve his fitness to match his undoubted talent between now and the Leinster Championships.