In the best performance seen by a Box Hill cross country team in decades, our Division 1 men’s team dominated the 8km cross country championship at Lardner Park, Warragul on Saturday 3rd May on a wet and hilly course.
Box Hill had 5 runners in the top 11 finishers, with Chris Hamer and Steve Dinneen winning medals.
Box Hill men not only won the division 1 teams competition but also won Division 3 and the Over 40 competitions.
Go to www.youtube.com/athsvictv to see the youtube coverage of the event including an interview with Lee Troop and Chris Hamer
Hopefully we can strengthen our division 3 and division 5 teams when several runners who missed this event return to competition.Division 1 Team: 1st place 1. Lee Troop (Geelong) 24:30 2. Chris Hamer (Box Hill) 24:53 3. Steve Dinneen (Box Hill) 25:25 4. Daniel Hornery (Sandingham) 25:31 5. Steve Kelly (Box Hill) 25:37 6. Mark Thompson (Glenhuntly) 25:39 7. Paul Martinico (Sandringham) 25:39 8. Andrew White (Box Hill) 25:47 9. Tyson Popplestone (Inv) 25:52 10. Sam Crowther (Knox) 25:56 11. Daniel Clark (Box Hill) 25:57 12. Liam Adams (Essendon) 25:58 23. Matt Coloe 26:46 Division 3 Team: 1st place 32. John Meagher 27:16 46. Paul Boxshall 27:58 78. Graeme Olden 29:19 84. Chris O’Connor 29:26 109. Antony Van Eeten 30:28 Division 5 Team: 6th place 127. Steve Griffin 30:51 266. Scott Boxshall 35:59 305. Andrew Tunne 38:58 326. David Stevens 41:24 Over 40 Team: 1st place 2. John Meagher 26:17 7. Graeme Olden 29:19 9. Chris O’Connor 29:26 61. Andrew Tunne 38:58 68. David Stevens 41:24
Unfortunately our women’s team is looking low on numbers this year.
Hayley Tomlinson, Emma Steer, Kate Wall, Sarah Cant, Margie Conley, Suzanne Andrews, Priscilla Barrington, Liz Dobson, Amanda Harper, Megan Sloane, Jess De Bruin, Jocelyn Keage, Claire Fritze, Fiona Turner, Alice Baquie and Kris Hopkins are all either overseas, injured, were unavailable for this event, are unavailable for this season or have other commitments.
Despite this our women’s division 1 team performed reasonably well. Rachel Johnson, Talitha Crawford, Kerry Putt and new member Brittany Moran all put in good performances over the very tough course to finish in 7th place in the teams competition, close behind the 5th and 6th teams.
Division 1 Team: 7th place 22. Rachel Johnson 23:53 40. Brittany Moran 25:14 66. Talitha Crawford 27:05 91. Kerry Putt 28:22
Hopefully we can increase the number of women running for the next event, the 10km road race at Sandown.
Due to school commitments we had only four junior athletes competing on Saturday, but they all put in good performances.
Josh De Stefanis put in a very promising effort to finish 8th in a time of 13:44 in the men’s under 20 4km event. Jonathan Tree finished in a good 12th place in the under 16 men’s 3km race in a time of 11:44.
Bridget Aughton (13:21) and Olivia Turnbull (13:33) finished 11th and 13th respectively in the under 18 women’s 3km event.
We look forward to having more junior athletes competing as their school commitments allow.
