Team impresses at Grangemouth

May 27 2009 by Jean Pedder, Stirling Observer Wednesday

A NUMBER of Central’s young athletes competed for Team Forth Valley in the home match of the National Junior League Premier Division at Grangemouth on Sunday.

With some of the UK’s top athletes on show from Gateshead, York, Liverpool and Sale as well as local rivals from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Kingdom of Fife, this was always going to be a big task for the local youngsters.

The race of the day was the Men's 3,000metres with Alex Hendry pushing the pace from Edinburgh’s Fraser Scott.

As the race unwound, Alex’s persistence dropped Scott but some strong running saw Edinburgh’s Andrew Crichton move through with around 600metres to go. As Alex and Andrew swapped places in the final lap Central’s Sean Reilly was gaining with every stride.

The excitement mounted as the three youngsters hit the final straight and it was Crichton who swept through for victory in 8min 52.16secs with Sean catching his team-mate Alex in the last two metres, the two athletes timed at 8.52.99 and 8.53.12 respectively, a tremendous effort from all three athletes. Earlier in the day Sean had run into third place in the 800metres with a useful 1min 59.26secs.

Elsewhere on the track Kyle Henderson powered round to third in the 200metres with an excellent personal best of 22.3secs. Martyn Paterson continues to impress and here capture fifth place in the 400metres with 52.33secs while Tom Watson was making his debut at this level and weighed in with a tasty 4min 17.33secs clocking over 1500metres.

Ross Milne was another having his first outing at this level and tackled a tough 400metres Hurdles and 2,000metres Steeplechase combination picking up fifth and sixth places respectively with times of 69.58secs and 7min 17.15secs.

In the Field events Kyle Henderson launched himself out to second place in the Long Jump with a best of 6.78metres but had an even longer effort ruled out for a marginal foul on the take-off board. Martyn Paterson showed his breadth of talent with a 11.90metre Triple Jump.

There were also a number of debut performances from Central’s Under 17 Women with Rachel Anderson’s personal best of 61.59secs for 400metres catching the eye as she came home in third place in the ‘B’ race. Rachel went on to pick up fifth ‘A’ points in the 1500metres with a 5min 2.67secs clocking.

This was also Sarah Dick’s first outing at this level showing some useful sprinting in the 200metres with 28.78secs. Jennifer Hutchison had a busy day taking fourth in the 400metres Hurdles in 69.45secs followed by seventh in the 200metres in 26.91secs.

Louise Anderson was another to display her speed, coming home in 13.30secs in the 100metres then taking and third in the Long Jump with a useful 5.14metres and fourth in the Triple Jump with a best of 10.73metres.

The Relays showed an excellent representation of Central athletes with Kyle Henderson and Martyn Paterson helping to bring their team round to third in the 4 x 100metres.

Tom Watson and Martyn Paterson pulled out all the stops in the 4 x 400metres relay while Louise Anderson and Sarah Dick in the 4 x 100metres and Jennifer Hutchison and Rachel Adamson in the 4 x 400metres helped their teams round to more useful points.

Overall the Team finished fourth behind Edinburgh, Glasgow and Sale Harriers but ahead of Kingdom, Gateshead, Liverpool and York, with Central’s youngsters proving to be a force within a strong Forth Valley Team.

The focus of the Forth Valley Athletic Partnership’s Endurance Initiative moved to Callander Park, Falkirk for a Road Race over an approximate distance of one and half miles.

In near perfect running conditions, Sam Fraser again stamped his authority on the event from the start and came round in 8min 14secs. Gary MacFarlane also impressed with a confident run to finish in 8min 29secs while Natalie McLeod was first Girl in the useful time of 8min 40secs.

Iain Davies underlined his progress coming home in 8.56, as did the determined Shannon MacFarlane (9.02). Drew Meikle ran strongly throughout to finish in 9.13 holding off Keiran Ballard’s able challenge (9.18) with Daniel McGhee (9.19) only a couple of strides in arrears.

Aaron Naismith was another to have an improved and able run (9.34) to hold off a strong challenge from Kieran Potter (9.36). Lewis Sinclair stuck to his task well and produced a speedy finish to come home in 10.21 as Caitlin Walker’s run of 10.36 was an excellent effort in the company.

There was some tasty Road Running performances from Central Athletic Club’s top performers at the Polaroid Eyewear Helensburgh 10K with second place Men and Women finishers Ross Houston (30min 49secs) and Alison Docherty (36.24). Ross Milne came home as third placed Junior in an excellent 36.45 followed in by veteran runner David Eckersley 37.01.

Top Central Finisher in the Black Rock 5 at Kinghorn was Lewis Millar as he finished in a close up fourth place in the fine time of 23min 46secs over this testing course.