Rentons and Rory are Mayo’s best at All-Irelands

Athletics: There were some highly impressive results for Mayo at Saturday’s 123.ie All-Ireland Schools Cross Country Championships which took place at Galway Racecourse.

Pride of place went to Freya Renton, whose incredible dominance of her age grade nationally shows no sign of abating, as the Sacred Heart Westport student maintained her remarkable run of national championship wins with a start-to-finish win in the intermediate girls 3,500m Freya crossed the line in isolation in a time of 12:32. Her success didn’t end there however, because excellent runs by her teammates also saw Sacred Heart Westport win team gold. Freya’s twin sister Holly finished in fourth place while Aoibhinn McNamara (57), Erin Walsh (67), Lauren Clarken (74), Maud O’Reilly (78) and Chloe Donnellan (81) all contributed to their school’s first place finish as well.

Another Sacred Heart runner, May Duckett, excelled in the junior girls race (2,500m), finishing in 10th position.

Meanwhile, in the junior boys race over 3,500m, Rory Gruddy of St Joseph’s Secondary School delivered an exceptionally gutsy run to finish sixth overall and, in the process, earned selection on the Irish schools’ team for the prestigious SIABs Cross Country, which takes place in Glasgow the weekend after next. He’ll be up against the cream of cross country runners from England, Scotland and Wales, as well as Ireland.

The junior boys race on Saturday also saw success for St Muredach’s College, Ballina as their team of Patrick Ruane (16th), Eoghan Gallagher (30), Tommy Tighe (53), Ryan Murphy (66), Jamie McDonnell (99) and James Long (106) won team bronze.

Most are members of Moy Valley AC, as are Darragh Murooney and Aine Brennan who also competed at All-Ireland Schools Cross Country Championships. Darragh represented Jesus and Mary, Enniscrone and ran to 10th overall in the highly competitive senior boys race while Aine, who attends St Mary’s in Ballina, was placed 30th in the senior girls.