Friday evening and Saturday saw the climax to the Ulster provincial schools’ athletics championships at the Antrim Forum. Successful athletes progress from this event to the Irish Schools championships at Tullamore on Saturday 4th June.
On a damp Friday evening Zac Moraghan was first out for North Down finishing 4th in the Minor boys 75m hurdles and Lauren Hamilton came 3rd in the Intermediate girls 80M hurdles. The weather made the throwing circle in the Hammer events wet and slippery which didn’t deter Beth Crosbie from throwing 35:82, just 16cm short of her pb and a 4th place finish. Ollie Wakefield secured victory in the Senior boys 110M hurdles and followed up with a 3rd in the Senior Long jump on Saturday, before Nia McNally took to the track for the Intermediate girls 3000M where she ran a pb time of 11:29 to finish 6th. Last up on Friday evening was Craig McMeechan in the Senior boys 5000M. A very tactical race came down to the last 400M where 4 athletes made a 1 lap dash for the line. Craig finished 2nd having run mile splits of 5:48, 5:38 and finally 4:49, an indication of the nature of the race.
Saturday brought an improvement in the weather and successes for NDAC. Katie Kimber won the Mini girls 100M with her club mate, Megan Drummond taking 2nd place in the same race. In the Junior girls 100M Rachel McCann finished 3rd in a race where the first three all finished within 2 hundredths of a second of each other, and Rachel recording the same time as 2nd place. Rebecca Webb finished 5th after coming 2nd in the Junior girls Long Jump. Rachel completed a bronze double by taking 3rd place in the Junior girls 200M. Saskia Greer, competing in the Senior girls 100M managed 6th position.
Aaron Sexton was very successful in winning both the Intermediate boys 100M and 200M and in the process creating a new schools’ 200M record of 22:12. Aaron Blackmore was 6th in the 100M and 4th in the 200M. The 800M races produced more medals for NDAC with Amelia Tyler winning a bronze in the Mini girls while Tara McDonough was 9th. The Minor girls produced another 3rd place medal with Megan Briggs and Rachel Gillespie finishing 10th. Murphy Miller won the third ND 800M bronze medal in the Junior girls leaving Jakob Swann to dramatically win the Minor boys 800M with a new schools’ record of 2:10:08. Reece Simpson, returning to fitness, ran in both the competitive Senior boys 800M and 1500M.
A further gold medal was achieved in the Intermediate girls 300M in the form of Holly Brannigan with Beth Crosbie coming 5th in the same race.
In the field events Elleana Hull came 4th in the Senior girls Shot, which warmed her up nicely to win the Senior girls javelin by over 4 meters. Amy Kimber, also throwing the javelin in the Junior girls, came 4th and then followed up with a 2nd place in the discus. Johnny Moore went one better in claiming 3rd in the Minor boys long jump, narrowly missing 2nd by 2cms. Faye Nixon created yet another schools’ record in the Junior girls Shot throwing 10:22 to win by 50 cms. Michael Gaffney recorded 53:19 in the Senior boys javelin to win silver.
In the relay events with North Down representation there were successes for Bangor Grammar in the Intermediate boys and Glenlola in the Senior girls. Strathearn Junior girls raced to a silver medal and Sullivan were 3rd in the Mini girls.
