Surrey League XC Match 4 – Lloyd Park – 11/02/23
Lloyd park was hosting its 3rd fixture of the XC season, having hosted the ‘Junior’ SoT and the County Championships and surprisingly the course was unusually dry and firm for a mid-February match.
Senior Men
Going into the final fixture Guildford held a slender lead of 22 points over Hercules Wimbledon, who have been the dominant team in the Surrey League for the past few seasons. A possible win was on the cards for Guildford provided we had our strongest team and our runners all had the run(s) of their lives.
As has been the theme for this season, a very deep field toed the start line with numerous National level athletes making up teams pushing for their final standings in the table.
The team were led home once again by John Sanderson, who finished in 2nd place to complete a remarkable return to form over the four fixtures (18th, 16th, 5th, 2nd). Johnny Van Deventer also picked up as the season progressed to finish in an excellent 6th place yesterday. John & Johnny finished as 3rd & 4th individuals over the entire season.
The superb team spirit was best summed up by Andy Coley-Maud, who accelerated his return from injury to line up for the team and come away with an amazing 23rd place, outsprinting Tom Foster to the line. The ever-reliable ‘engine room’ of George Dollner, Matt McDaniel, James Harvey, Callum Job, Colin High & Nick Tearle completed the scoring team.
Guildford’s men fielded their largest ever Surrey League team (37) yesterday and despite our valiant efforts we could not overhaul Wimbledon who put out an extremely strong team, and delivered an excellent performance to retain the SL XC Title for another year.
In the season’s age group competitions, Kay Davies finished 2nd U20, Lee Lintern was 5th V40, Mark Tennyson & Phil Pryke were 2nd & 3rd V50s
The team finished the season one place higher, and over 200 points better than last year. We certainly have the momentum on our side…on to 2023 / 24. We have performed consistently in each fixture, putting out huge numbers and keeping our scoring team consistent (the same 7 have scored in every fixture)
Fantastic work everyone!
Senior Women
Guildford’s ladies also turned out in great numbers yesterday, with seventeen making the trip to Croydon for the Gees.
Suzie Monk continued her excellent run of form, battling hard with Bethanie Murrey (THH) and Georgie Grgec (HHH) to take 2nd place on the day and 2nd in the overall standings for the season (with 4th, 3rd, 4th, 2nd places over the four fixtures). There was a welcome return from Carolyne Baxter in 26th place, as Naomi Maini, Chloe Crossman and Jilly Raw completed our scoring team.
The ladies finished as 7th A team on the day, with Nici Cahusac, Katie Grinyer, Emily Ealham, Alice Batchelor and Susanna Harrison taking the 4th B team spot. Over the full season, we finished as 8th A team (of 14) and 6th B team. Team manager Susanna was the 3rd F60 over the season.