There were team medals for both St. Michael’s and Mount Lourdes as a number of local runners produced fine performances at the Ulster Schools’ Cross Country Championships which were held at windy Mallusk playing fields last week.

With firm underfoot conditions, it led to fast distance running and St. Michael’s returned home with silver in the Junior Boys event and bronze in the Senior Boys event while Mount Lourdes made a long awaited return to the podium with a super silver in the Senior Girls race.

Edel Monaghan led the way for Mount Lourdes, coming home in tenth place and she was followed by Aoife Farrell and Catraoine O’Donnell to secure a brilliant second place finish in the senior team competition.

In the senior boys race, Domhnall Lynam produced a strong run to come in ninth and with Jacob Britton and John Carrigan among others to perform well, St. Michael’s clinched a bronze medal.

The Junior Boys from St. Michael’s were to go one better as Rory Keane (9th) and Oisin Cassidy (12th) helping them to a silver medal in their event.

There was also a number of excellent individual performances on the day, not least from Enniskillen Royal School’s Sophia Williams who stormed home to a fifth place finish in the Mini Girls race while Devenish Colleges Ellie McDonald and Mount Lourdes Anna Gillespie was also inside the top 20.

In the minor boy’s race, Cormac McCauley narrowly missed out on All Ireland qualification by a few places while in the junior girls race Ava Thompson from Devenish qualified for her first All Irelands, showing the benefit of consistent, careful training as she came home in 14th place.

In all, six Enniskillen Running Club members have qualified for the All Ireland Cross Country Championships through their various schools which is a great achievement.

In the earlier Flavahans primary school races at the same venue, there were tremendous performances by the ‘minis’.

In the girls race the Duffy twins, Grainne and Muireann, representing Killyhommon PS, came top 20 followed closely by Holy Trinity’s Leah McAloon. While in the boys race Patrick Williams of Enniskillen Model PS came 15th in Ulster.