Finn Diver’s fine individual victory was the standout performance of a day that saw St Malachy’s sweep all five boys team titles on offer.
The Year 8’s set the tone for the day with a narrow victory over Methody to finish first out of 13 teams. After a relatively poor start Thomas Coy charged through the 85 man field to get up to second place with a few hundred metres to run, only to lose a couple of places in a very close sprint finish. Patrick Hume and Cormac Leheny ran fine races to finish in 6th and 7th. Peadar Sheridan rounded out the scoring quartet in 18th place to secure the first team title on offer. Tiernan Conway and Cillian McMullan were always to the fore in the Minor boys (Yr9) race with Tiernan a clear second and Cillian just pipped for the bronze medal on the line. Sé Sweetnam finished in 9th and Aidan O’Hara (13th) won his battle with Ethan Connolly (15th) to complete the scoring. The Junior boys placed all their scorers in the top seven to secure the third title of the days in excellent fashion. Ben Neal ran in the top three throughout the race and was rewarded with the individual bronze medal. A trio of the recent victorious gaelic team filled 5th to 7th places with Darragh Rooney, Daire Donnelly and Cathair McKenna finishing in that order. Darragh was unlucky as a slight wrong turn towards the end cost him 4th place, whereas Daire and Cathair had strong finishes to pick up a number of places in the run in. Finn Diver led the Inter boys race from start to finish and looked comfortable in doing so. He was superbly backed up by a pair of year 11’s who still have another year in this age group. Jude McGann picked up the individual bronze and was closely followed by Eoin McConnell in 4th. Donal Owens finished up their scoring with a strong 7th place. The senior boys packed well finishing five runners in a row from 5th to 9th place to complete the sweep of all the boys titles on offer. Odhran Rafferty was the first green vest across the line, closely followed by Ronan McAree, Diarmuid Hanna, Adam McCann and Evan Stanley. All these teams will now compete for Ulster titles and All-Ireland qualifying berths at Mallusk in two weeks time.