National top ten placings for Herne Hill Harriers’ U13 Road Relay teams

Herne Hill Harriers U13 boys and girls both finished an excellent 10th at the National Road Relay Championship races on Sunday, writes Geoff Jerwood.

The U13 boys team got off to a fine start as Keeran Sriskandarajah came home in an excellent seventh on the first leg in 13:51 for the 3.8km undulating loop to record the 10th fastest overall time in his age group.

He handed over to Fabien Whitelock whose 15:01 kept the team in eighth after two stages before anchor runner Joshua Lee-Baum produced a time of 14:29 on a strong last leg to secure 10th team position.

The B team of Oak Buchan (14:31), Archie Penniceard (16:29) and Freddie Hake (15:42) placed 29th of 47 complete teams, with a C team of Mustafa Osman 16:39, Daniel Aisa Miller 16:43 and John Goldston 16:51 finishing 45th.

This top-ten A team placing was emulated by the U13 girls, albeit they moved forward throughout the three stages of their relay over the same course.

Rosalie Laban finished the first leg in 16th with 15:35, before Lily-Rose Brown moved up to 13th on leg two with a clocking of 16:08. Izzy Perry’s final stage run in 16:00 brought her team home.

The B team of Eva O’Hanlon clocked 15:21 – ahead of her A team – for 13th, Vivi Marshall bumped them up to eighth with 15:48 and Cecilia Hayward-Bhika completing the B team in 29th with 19:29.

The next highest of the Herne Hill teams was the senior women’s A team in a four-stage relay around a 4.3km circuit. The team placed 22nd courtesy of Sarah Grover – 44th on first leg with 16:41, then Helena Corbin ran superbly on second leg to overtake 21 runners to move up to 23rd with 15:32.

Molly Pocock improved the position to 22nd with 16:38 and Aimee Hargreaves maintained this to the end with her 16:56. An incomplete B team of Katie Kedward (16:55) and Jemima Hayward-Bhika (19:24) were 57th of the 71 teams at the halfway stage where their race came to an end, with 64 teams completing the four-leg relay.

The U15 boys’ A and B teams finishing 45th and 50th respectively through Harvey Kande 13:36, Robin Bebbington 15:31 and Diego Lister 15:24 in the A team and Evan Cowell New 15:13, Alex Spaul 14:58 and David Aisa Miller 15:10 in the B team.

The U15 girls’ team placed 55th with Sinian Mcdowell 18:34, Sophia Ezeh 18:52 and Claire Vanheel 24:00 completing the team and the U17 men’s team of Sam Camenzuli 13:18, Dylan Sweet 14:11 and Jacob Alley 15:20 placed 50th in their race.

Herne Hill had men and women’s teams racing in the East Surrey League cross country race in Lloyd Park, Croydon. The men’s A team of Angus Butler (second), Eoin Brady (fifth), Jack Dickenson (eighth) and Bryn Reynolds (19th) placed second.

The women’s A team of Lara Langston (third), Shannon Sinclair (fourth), Jodie Gray (seventh) and Susan Mair (eighth) also finished second.

The women’s B team placed fourth and the men’s B team tenth in a fairly low-key opener to the cross country league season as a prelude to tomorrow’s bigger Surrey League cross country races, the men racing at Effingham Common and the women in Priory Park in Reigate.