History in the making for Hallam and Owls team-mates
Owls have been crowned North Midlands Cross-Country League champions
They finished on 254 points, 263 ahead of second-place Charnwood AC.
It means Owls became the first senior men's team from Leicestershire to win the overall team title in 25 years, the last being Leicester Coritanian in 1988.
Their leading light was Danny Hallam, whose third-place finish in the final round of races at RAF Cranwell saw him come away with the senior men's and overall men's title – the first Leicestershire athlete to do so since Simon Cotton in 1995.
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The race was a thriller as Hallam, Owls team-mate Ed Highton and Leicester Tri-Club's Connor Murphy finished within two one-hundredths of a second of each other.
Hallam had set the pace in the first lap of the 10k event, before Murphy took the lead with 100m to go. All three were neck-and-neck, but Highton powered through to win in 30min 42sec, from Murphy, 30.43, and Hallam, 30.44.
County half-marathon champion Mark Powell finished fourth in 31.02 to clinch second in the overall senior men's standings.
Charnwood's Gary Burnett finished the final race in a time of 32.45 to seal the top prize in the overall men's Vet40 category.
Leicester Tri-Club's Duncan Shea-Simmonds finished in third.
Mick Kingsbury, also Charnwood, sealed the men's Vet45 title with his time of 35.18. Harborough's William Clapp was third overall.
Harborough's women also had great success in the veterans' categories.
Hannah Eveleigh's sixth-place finish in the senior ladies 6km race, in 22.31, was enough for her to clinch the overall Vet35 crown.
Yvonne Scarrott took the Vet45 top prize with her time 24.34. Nicola James, also of Harborough, took second place in the Vet40 category, with 27.30.
Jo Pollard blew away the field to secure a clean sweep of the under-13 boys' event. The Charnwood athlete completed the 3km event in 11.48 for his fourth successive victory in the league.
Leicester Coritanian's Jordan Waine won the under-13 girls' race in 10.54. But it was Jess Rattray's third-place finish in 11.00 that secured the young Charnwood runner the overall runners-up spot. Harborough's Molly Watson clinched the third overall spot.
The Secondary Schools Cross-Country League race, scheduled to take place on Saturday, has been cancelled due to poor ground conditions.
The next race will be the County Championships on Saturday, February 2, at Ratcliffe College.
The Leicester Walking Club and Leicestershire Championships will be held on Saturday at Haynes Road, Leicester. The 10-mile event starts at 1pm.
Comments
by offord702
Tuesday, February 05 2013, 8:00PM
“History ! That was when a team from Leicestershire won it for the first time (LCAT) - not the third time.”