Saturday saw the Hare and Hounds’ women’s team dominate their match against the RAF and the Eastern Counties Athletics Association cross-country teams, while there were encouraging signs from the men’s team in a very competitive early season fixture.
The women’s match was won by the Hare and Hounds by 15-21-56 (cumulative positions of the first four from each team for CUH&H, RAF and ECAA respectively), with Liz Mooney being beaten from finishing first by less than a second and Alison Greggor two seconds behind in third. Ladies’ Captain Katy Hedgethorne illustrated her continuing improvement with a fourth place finish by breaking away from the chasing pack, while Fresher Tas Pope, who has proven to be one of an impressive intake this year for the women’s team, was only two places behind in sixth position. This impressive team performance was even despite the absence of Blues runner Rebecca Moore who was 3rd British woman in the BUPA Great South Run on Sunday, among other absentees.
In an equally competitive race, a less than full strength men’s team struggled to make their mark finishing third by 73-51-54 (first six to score). Alex Short followed up his Fresher’s Fun Run win with a fine second place finish not far behind the RAF’s Ben Livesey (who is currently ranked 10th in the country over the marathon). Josh Carr was the second Cambridge man home in seventh place, a clear sign of a good chance of getting a spot in the Blues team if this form can be maintained over to the main selection races. After Carr were Fresher Luuk Metselaar (following up with a solid run after a storming College League race victory over the last weekend) and Pete Townsend in eleventh and twelfth position respectively. Perhaps the star performance of the day was from Richard Ollington, who finished sixteenth and was fifth Cambridge finisher, showing signs of his increasing ability to convert his track prowess onto the cross-country, with the sixth scoring runner Barnaby Walker in twenty-fifth place.
With plenty of other key runners available for matches in the coming weeks (the next being the Hare and Hounds’ second appearance in perhaps the most competitive cross-country league in the country in two weeks’ time), it is likely that the team will only produce stronger performances in the run up to the all-important Varsity fixtures at the end of the term.
Full results can be found here: https://cuhh.soc.srcf.net/competition/resultsarchive/20142015/RAF_results1415.php