Heanor RC’s senior men managed to secure team bronze for the second year running and numerous individual category prizes were picked up as the 2013-14 North Midlands XC League season was put to bed at Wollaton Park on Saturday.

Stuart King grabbed individual bronze in his debut season in yellow and blue whilst Lily Winfield finished her season off in style to also pick up individual bronze in her first year at U13 level.

Danielle Smith, Emily Deeming, Phoebe Winfield and Dylan George continued their recent good form ahead of the fast-approaching regional and national championships.

Wollaton Park, Nottingham will be the venue for the English National XC in six weeks’ time but the course was the usual North Mids circuit. Conditions were ideal and in stark contrast to those at the County Championships at Shipley Park just seven days before.

Following consistent top-10 finishes in the first three races, Stuart King recorded his best position of the season to finish fifth and his consistency was rewarded overall with individual bronze.

Joe Rainsford posted his best finish of the season of 10th to surpass his previous best in the last fixture at Shipley Park whilst Ashley Deeming (46th), Danny Heathcote (63rd) and Andy Basey (68th) completed the team’s scorers to see the quintet finish fourth on the day. North Mids ever-present Paul Winfield finished 132nd.

Before the final fixture, it seemed the battle for third team overall would go down to the wire with Notts AC but it would be Charnwood AC who eventually missed out on a top-3 spot. Following a low turnout at Wollaton Park, the Loughborough-based side finished tenth and slipped to fourth overall.

OWLS AC maintained their commanding position at the top of the pile despite Notts AC coming back strong to win the final fixture as Heanor RC were rewarded with third.

In the U13 boys race, Dylan George followed up his Nottinghamshire XC Championships silver with his second-best North Mids finish of the season of 9th, which was enough to see him place sixth overall in his debut cross country season for the club.

Lily Winfield maintained her consistent winter form to finish 5th in the U13 girls event. In her first season in the age category, Lily picked up individual bronze to match her Derbyshire XC Championships bronze won seven days earlier.

Danielle Smith and Emily Deeming flew the flag once again in the U15 girls 3000m race, with Danielle finishing just outside the top-3 in fourth and Emily equalling her best North Mids finish of the season in 16th. Danielle missed out on bronze overall by just four positions whilst Emily was 23rd overall having completed three out of the four races.

Full results