The final league match of this winters East District Cross Country League took place in Bathgate on Saturday. It was fairly windy but otherwise a beautiful mild day. It was a largely flat course with good conditions underfoot for the most part, although there were a couple of muddier sections.
On the whole Lasswade had good numbers competing, but the number of boys competing was disappointing. The split for each age group was as follows:
U11 Boys – 0/U11 Girls – 6
U13 Boys – 1/U13 Girls – 7
U15 Boys – 1/U15 Girls – 4
U17 Men – 3/U17 Women – 1
Senior Men – 4/Senior Women – 5
The first race of the day was the U11 Girls and first home for Lasswade was Lara Winters in 35th followed by Isla Houston in 41st. Joella Esson was just a few places behind in 44th, closely followed by Orla Connor 45th and Shauni Devlin in 47th. Sadie Wilson was our final U11 girl in 52nd.
In the third race our U13 girls ran very well with Isla Madhra in her first race for the club having a strong run to finish in 3rd place. Team mate Rosa Gomez-Candy also in her first race for the club was not too far behind in 21st. Our next three runners together with four athletes from other clubs were in a very close finish all being given the same time, Laura Kitchin 31st, Esme Scott 32nd and Olivia Spark in 35th. Our final runners were Eilidh Mowbray 58th and Darcy Esson 60th.
In the U13 boys we only had one runner, Fraser Houston who has been improving all season had his best race to date finishing in 47th.
In the U15 boys again we only had one runner, Struan Milne who had a solid run in 36th place
The U15/U17 girls are all in the same race and we had five athletes in this race. Cerys Wright has been running very well all season and continued that trend with a win on Saturday. Team mate Freya Brown also running very well this winter had another great run to finish in 3rd place. Our third counter was Bethan Kitchin who had a solid run to finish in 24th. Emma Thomson was next Lasswade athlete to finish with a strong run in 36th. Beth McWilliam having been ill and missed training for a few weeks made a great effort to race and was next to finish in 44th.
In the U17 men hopes had been high of winning the league as we went into the final match with a twelve point lead. Our first counter was Andrew McWilliam with a comfortable win and his traditional salute coming through the finish. Next home was Innes Wright with a solid race and fighting all the way to the finish placed 7th. We were missing a couple of our regular U17 men but Kieran Glass stepped up to complete the team and have a strong run to finish in 25th place. We narrowly missed winning the league by two points.
In the ladies race our U20 Olivia Meikle had a strong run to finish in 12th place. Next home was Claire Houston finishing in 30th place who was closely followed by team-mate Cathy Dickson in 34th place. I hadn’t seen Rachel Fagan since this race last year so it was good to see her back running and finishing in 72nd place. Alison Binns was our final athlete finishing just inside the top 100 in 95th place.
In the Men’s race Scott Dickson led the Lasswade team home in 140th place. He was followed by Oscar Gomez in 220th, Doug McDonald in 221st and Derrick Brydon in his first race since Bathgate last season completing the Lasswade runners in 240th.
Congratulations to all the runners on their own individual performances.
For full results please click here
