At the weekend the College Senior boys athletics squad won the `College of Science’ Trophy, for the best Senior boys team at the All Ireland T&F Championships, for the first time in College History.

Jai Benson led the way winning the TJ (14.01m) by over half an metre and finishing a very close 2nd in the LJ (6.68m) where he was only 3cm away from 1st place. Cormac O’Rourke ran a great race to gain 2nd in the 400m(49.58s), running under 50s for only the second time ever. Conall McClean ran an outstanding race to finish 2nd in the 5,000m in his 2nd fastest time ever (15min 27s) despite a pedestrian first half mile. Aidan McGeown claimed 7th in the Hammer. The 4*100m (45.17s - Aidan Dickey, Jordan Cunningham, Aidan McGeown & Jai Benson) and 4*400m (3min 34s - Kelan Benson, Tim Scott, Conall Browne and Cormac O’Rourke) relay teams ran their fastest times ever to each claim 5th spot and add valuable team points.

This group added the All-Ireland title to the Ulster one they had also won for the first time two weeks ago. With all but one of the athletes eligible again next year the future looks good.

In the Intermediate age group (Yr11&12) Jordan Cunningham claimed bronze in the LJ (6.44m) and ran a big personal best and under 14s for the first time for 4th in the 100m Hurdles (13.81), narrowly missing a medal by less than a tenth of a second. Callum Morgan, Daniel McComiskey and Matthew Lavery gained great experience in their first trip to the All-Ireland’s on the track and I am sure will be back in the future chasing medals. Callum came within 1s of his pb to claim 8th in the 3000m (9min 33s). Daniel and Matthew finished 8th (4 min 42s)and 13th (4 min 52s) in the U16 mile, both times that would equate to personal bests over the more commonly ran 1500m distance.