XCR 26 Round 2 - Jells Park Relays

It was a relatively warm day and with no recent rain, so the course was dry and fast. Our numbers in the open men were down, but with some support from the U20 and U18 juniors we were able to field 4 full open men’s teams and 4 open women’s teams. Highlights for the day were again the premier teams’ results with the men finishing second and our women finishing third. Thanks again to all athletes for turning up on the day and making it a great one as usual. Thanks to Brenda, Burkie, Dan and Stu for your assistance in collecting race fees and organsing our athletes. Again, there was lots of food on the table, thanks all those who contributed. Thanks to Mal Hodgart who assisted with the AV helper duties as well as running a leg in the Div 6.

Open Women

Another consistent effort from our premier team, with the assistance from U20 Leanne Ellis, saw our team finish third. Janae Mackrell was first out for the team, then U20 Leanne Ellis handing to Amy Cashin in her first run as an open athlete in the 6km course! Amy finished with the fastest time in 21 minutes and 25 seconds. Ebony Dodemaide was the fourth leg and Sophie McMinimee rounded out the team. Our Div 2 team was 7th, Div 4 was 5th and Div 5 4th. There were no overage teams, all in for the open teams!

Open Men

Our men’s numbers were down on our usual turnout but with the addition of a couple of juniors, we were able to field 4 full teams, Premier, Div 3, Div 5 and Div 6. In our Premier Team Zayd Al Sayd led the team and finished the first leg in third with the team’s fastest time for our team in 14 minutes and 11 seconds. Callum Drake was second and Liam Cashin third and in his debut for the premier team, Thomas Giallo was fourth. At this point it seemed that we would finish mid field but a solid run from Brandon Muscat put us into second and U20 Alex Cameron-Smith hung on, ahead of Bendigo region. In our other divisions, the Div 3 was 8th with U18 Bon Martin fastest in the team, the Div 5 was 8th and the div 6 was 7th.

Juniors

Thanks to our four junior athletes running up in the open ranks; U20 Alex Cameron Smith, U18 Bon Martin, U20 Riley Parks and U20 Leanne Ellis.

We had three junior teams in the mix; Men’s U20 and U16 and the women’s U16. In the men’s U20 Jackson Wright, Armeet Dhaliwal and Mitchell Parks did well finishing fifth and the U16 Men’s team of Ryder Deans, Zac Salerno and Felix Marchant were 7th. The women’s U16 team of Ella McDonald, Abbey Bassos and Hasel Hew all ran well to finish 10th.