Sport in our schools: All-round excellence takes St Kentigern’s to victory

By Gary Heatly
Published on Tuesday 8 November 2011 12:41

CROSS COUNTRY: St Kentigern’s Academy, from Blackburn, came out on top in the senior section at the West Lothian Schools’ Cross Country Championships on a day when more than 900 pupils were involved.

The event, held at Dechmont Law, near Deans Community High School in Livingston, last week saw 11 West Lothian secondary schools represented.

A Deans Cluster P6 race – involving Carmondean, Deans, Meldrum, St John Ogilvie and Ogilvie School Campus – and a West Lothian-wide P7 event also took place, while 23 competitors from Scottish Disability Sport were also involved.

Active Schools Co-ordinator Glenn Marsters ran the event and said: “It went really well and it was pleasing to see so many kids involved. In our area, we have worked hard with PE teachers and other staff to coordinate inter-school events and help raise the standard of competition.

“This is the third year that we have held a West Lothian Secondary School Sports League and schools build up points from various different events throughout the session, from girls football, to handball and basketball and so on until a winner is crowned.

“The league is great because it gets more youngsters involved in sport. There is a competitive edge and they like representing their schools.

“I must say a big thank you to all the staff and helpers who make the events possible as there quite a lot of organisation involved.”

In the senior section of the cross country event, pupils competed in four age groups: S1, S2, S3 and senior. The race distances varied from 1.7km for S1 pupils to 3.25km for the senior boys. Pupils were entered into races in teams of up to 12 runners, with the four best times contributing to the overall team score.

Erin Lee (S3 girls bronze), Callyn Brown (S3 boys bronze), Matthew Kean (senior boys bronze) all put in superb individual performances to help St Kentigern’s win overall, while the school gained a number of team medals too.

These came in the shape of a bronze in the S1 girls event (Channel Sneddon, Beth Kean, Morgan Corrigan and Stephanie Hosie), gold in the S3 girls event (Erin Lee, Erin Cooper, Sophie Marshall and Bethan Kelly), gold in the S3 boys event (Callyn Brown, James Thomas, Saad Mughal and Gary Clay) and gold in the senior boys (Matthew Kean, Eoin Tighe, Daniel McCart and Mark Tighe).

Overall, Armadale Academy finished second with St Margaret’s Academy third. The win for St Kentigern’s put them into the lead in the overall table with a number of events still to be completed after the Christmas break.

In the P6 girls race, Tara McGonigle, from St John Ogilvie PS, won with Taylor Jenkins, from Meldrum PS, second and Jacqueline McLure, from St John Ogilvie PS, in third.

St John Ogilvie PS’s Aidan Brady made it a double for the school when he won the boys P6 race.

Katie Taylor, from Springfield PS, won the girls P7 race, while Declan Wynne, from St Ninian’s PS, was the winner of the boys P7 race.

Points handed out for the senior section of the cross country event: St Kentigern’s Academy 25, Armadale Academy 18, St Margaret’s Academy 15, Linlithgow Academy 12, Deans CHS 10, Inveralmond CHS 8, West Calder HS 6, The James Young HS 5, Whitburn Academy 4, Broxburn Academy 3, Bathgate Academy 2.

Logged in as:

Comment here. Start typing your comment here:

Post comment

Please adhere to our Community guidelines

Your view

Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.