Lawton and O’Neill dominate at Munster Schools Championships

BY JOHN WALSHE

FOR the third weekend in a row, two West Cork athletes again dominated their respective events at the 123.ie Munster Schools’ Championships which took place at Castleisland.

Sean Lawton of Coláiste Pobail Bheanntraí added the senior 5000m gold to the 1500m and 3000m South Munster titles he had won at the Mardyke when coming home an easy winner in a time of 16:21.49.

The week before, the Durrus athlete had impressed over the shorter 1500m distance when winning in a good time of 4:01.2.

After an easy 800m victory on the first day of the South Munsters, Maeve O’Neill of MICC, Dunmanway, moved down to the 400m on Day 2 which she won in 56.70, just a second outside her personal best of 55.69. At Castleisland, her 800m victory was achieved in a time of 2:10.52 with Nicole Dinan (St Angela’s) again taking the runner-up spot.

Both Lawton and O’Neill now have a week’s break before the 123.ie Irish Schools Championships which will be held at Tullamore on June 2nd/3rd where both will be striving for further national honours.

In the senior grade at Castleisland, Ella Collins of Coláiste na Toirbhirte, Bandon was first in the 1500m steeplechase in 5:15.27 while Aoife Tuthill from the same school took second in the 3000m walk.

Lucy O’Flynn of Sacred Heart Secondary School Clonakilty took the bronze medal in the 1500m behind winner Claire Crowley from Kinsale Community School while in the boys’ events Jack Cullen of Hamilton High School had a second in the javelin with a throw of 42.50m

Amongst the intermediate winners were Eoin O’Callaghan (Hamilton HS), first in the high jump in 1.78m, and Adam O’Donovan (Skibbereen CS) who took the shot putt title in 17.28m along with a second in the javelin.

A championship best performance of 5:14.74 was achieved by Caoimhe Flannery from Skibbereen CS in the 1500m steeplechase with Katie Kingston of the same school taking the intermediate javelin gold with a throw of 42.47m. Ruby Cummins of Coláiste na Toirbhirte Bandon repeated her South Munster double when again winning the junior 80m hurdles and long jump events with respective performances of 11.65 and 5.11m.