The second Mid Lancs cross country fixture at Hyndburn saw a return to the muddy conditions that were missing at Burnley for the first fixture, but mud and soft ground are features which the venue at Wilson playing fields has long been associated with. Following several days of rain, the courses after the first few races soon had ankle deep mud and there were several areas of standing water.
In the junior races, the u11s were the first to start churning up the courses and Francesca White (22nd) and Lily Winstanley (30th) featured in the girls’ race. At under 13 girls both Anna Pilling and Lilly Washington ran, both finishing well, and very mud covered!
Matthew Clark repeated his Burnley win in the under 15 boys race. A handful of runners broke clear over the 3.8k course and Matthew won in the end by six seconds in a finishing time of 13.34. Gordon Ballantyne was 12th and William Moorhouse 14th and the boys also finished 1st team. Ava Jones was 5th in the under 15 girls race, Natasha Cooke, Holly Moffatt and Connie Humes also running. The under 17 women had a team second place with good contributions from Imogen Blackwell (8th), Grace Rayner (9th) and Olivia Miller (13th) .
Jenson Warren finished 7th in the under 17 men`s race over 5.9k, with Zack Taylor 8th, Billy Reid 11th and Charlie Haigh 16th.
In the senior ladies race over 5.9k, Libby Huxley was another who followed up her success at Burnley. She did this in fine style, being forty seconds ahead of second place in a time of 22.11. Katey Markland was 15th in 26.24 and Kate Lakeland 21st in 27.13. Emma Essex-Crosby had a good run for 28th spot and there were 133 finishers.
Dan Bebbington had a strong outing in the senior men`s event over 9.1k. With the first three slowly building a lead, he finished 3rd behind winner Jacob Cann of Lancaster University and 2nd placed James Douglas of Border Harriers. Wes Wilkinson ran very well for 11th place and Will Metcalf was 21st. With Simon Collins in 25th, Luke Suffolk in 33rd and Mariusz Kovacs in 56th they all were the remaining team counters for a second place Division One finish behind a strong Lancaster University team. There was again a good turn-out with enough runners, and more, for a B team score.
