St. Malachy’s Senior Boys claimed the Ulster title in fine fashion with an excellent team display at the Ulster Schools Championships at Mallusk on Wednesday. A group of year 14 students produced the goods in their last outing in a provincial Championships in College colours. Evan Stanley ran the best race of his life to claim 5th place, Diarmuid Hanna showed his class in 8th with Ronan McAree close behind him in 9th. Odhran Rafferty rounded out the scoring quartet in 11th place to give St. Malachy’s a convincing victory with 33 points, well ahead of St. Michael’s Enniskillen (80 points) and St. Coleman’s Newry (108 points) Adam McCann ran strongly to back them up in 20th place.
The Intermediate Boys ran strongly to claim the team silver behind a very good St. Michael’s squad that will be firm favourites for the All-Ireland title. Such are the high standards that Finn Diver sets himself that he will be disappointed with his individual 4th place finish. Year 11 pupils Eoin McConnell and Jude McGann ran well in 17th and 24th respectively, Donal Owens completed the scoring in 38th place.
Both squads will head to the All-Ireland Championships in Waterford next month with genuine medal aspirations.
Both the Junior (Yr10) and Minor (Yr9) teams finished in fourth place and were unlucky to narrowly miss out on a place at the All-Ireland’s. Tiernan Conway ran a fantastic race to lead the minors in 7th place and claim an individual qualifying place for the All-Ireland’s. Top finisher for the Junior boys team was Ben Neal in 30th with Cathair McKenna close behind in 35th.
The Mini Boys team gained great experience, finishing in fifth place at their first Ulster Championships. Thomas Coy got a much better start and ran a superb race to finish in 9th place.