Bruce's Almighty effort for Harriers
 | | HARDY HARRIER... David Bruce was the first Highgate Harrier across the line at Parliament Hill. |
CROSS-COUNTRY
HIGHGATE Harriers' women's team narrowly missed out on bronze in the hotly-contested South of England Cross-Country Championships at Parliament Hill on Saturday.
Harriers were just three points off third place, finishing fourth with 140 in the event won by Woodford Green with Essex Ladies, who also fielded individual winner, Jessica Sparke, who clocked 30minutes 5seconds.
The Woodford team scored 78, finishing ahead of second-placed Aldershot and Farnham (103) with Winchester (137) third.
Svenja Abel was first home for Highgate in 11th place in 32:25, while Esther Evans was 16th in 32:46. Kate Meredith was 44th (34:59) and Sarah Bailey 69th (36:04) in the field of around 400 runners.
Astrid Wingler (77th in 36:33) also made the top 100, along with Rhian Hampson-Jones (79th).
The six scoring members of the men's team were sixth, and their 12 to score finished fourth of 53 clubs in a race run over 15 kilometres of Hampstead Heath.
Winners Bedford & County AC, who provided individual winner Neilson Hall (50:57), won the six-to-score race with 100 points. Highgate's six-man team finished up with 429, with David Bruce leading the team over the line in 23rd place out of 806 finishers, in 53:53.
Henry Dodwell was 34th (54:48), while Ryan McKinlay (62nd in 56:56) finished just ahead of Shaun Dixon 64th (57:02).
Dale Bickham (118th in 59:18) and Duncan Burbidge (128th in 59:35) both came in under the hour-mark to complete the scoring six.
Stephen Whiting (59:41), Chris Panayiotou (59:48), Jon Deane (60:05), Nick Gold (61:15), Chris Beecham (61:27), Guillaume Cribier (61:34) made up the top 12.
London Heathside had a less successful day, failing to place any of their senior men in the top 100, and only Martin Potter broke the hour-mark, coming in 115th in 59:13.
He was followed three minutes later by Ed Samuel, Sergio Di Noto and Norman Mitchell, and the scoring six was completed by Richard Browne as the men's team finished 19th out of 54.
The scoring 12, including Marcus Tillotson, David Bird, Nick Jellema, Paul Lemmon, Danny Jacobson and Gavin Evans were 10th out of 17.
Heathside's women fared rather better, coming eighth out of 38 over 8k. Claire Gibson made it home in 31st place out of the 357 finishers, in 34:20.
Sue Rust was close behind in 36th position and Mhairi Mackenzie also finished in the top 100, with Louise Waldman just missing out in 105th and completing the scoring four.
However, Heathside's star performer was Under-20 junior Mehretab Solomon, who came third out of 99 in his category, completing the 8k course in 27:26 and winning his club's first individual medal at the Championships in quite some time.
Meanwhile, Max Robertson and Conor O'Shea enjoyed a final sprint for 96th place in the boys' Under-13 race over 3k, Robertson winning by a whisker in 13:18.
Max Heap (13:34) and Johnny Naylor (13:48) completed the scoring four, which finished 22nd out of the 34 team. They were followed by followed by Jasper Crockford (14:10) and Tom Gage (16:30).
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