June
All-Ireland Finals Tullamore
St. Mary’s had a very successful trip to the National Track and Field finals in Tullamore at the start of June. Having recording some excellent performances throughout the day we emerged with two sets of medals.
Samuel Samson once again showed why he has been one of the most talented athletes to wear the Mary’s colours when he won his seventh national medal, when his fast finishing brought him the bronze medal in the senior 400m Hurdles
Sam with his bronze medal for the 400m Hurdles
We had some great performances from Shane Traynor-Canavan in the Intermediate 400m Hurdles, and the 400m, just missing out on the medal positions, Blake Cummins finishing 6th in the minor 800m, from Antonio Lingurar who finished 7th in the Junior long jump, and from Andre Ferreira and Dylan Neary, who finished fifth and sixth in the senior 110m Hurdles. However, it was in the penultimate event that the icing was truly put on the cake when the Intermediate relay team of Ryan Traynor O’Toole, Selassie Seshi-Doe, Kelvin Samson and Shane Traynor-Canavan finished in third place to capture the first ever relay medals for the College.
It was a brilliant performance from four lads who put in a lot of very hard work and training and who got their just rewards.
Shane Traynor-Canavan, Ryan Traynor O’Toole, Kelvin Samson and Selassie Seshi-Doe with their National Bronze medals in the 4 x 100m relay.
May
Connacht Finals 2015
This year we headed into the Connacht Track and Field season with the added addition of being the first school to ever capture all four best schools shields, so the pressure was on to hold on to as many as we could at the business end of the season. The South Connacht’s were very successful and saw us qualify 54 athletes in 76 different events. This gave us a great platform heading into the Connacht Finals in the middle of May. However, we found the going tough and really had to pull out all the stops to ensure holding on to the Junior, the Intermediate shield, and, after a great day long battle with Sligo Grammar, the Senior Shield. Winning this shield came right down to the wire, with us having to defeat a Sligo team containing the Irish record holder in the 4x100m relay. A brilliant performance by the Mary’s quartet took them home in second place, marginally ahead of their rivals, but far enough to hold on to the senior shield by 2 points for the ninth year in succession. Three shields also ensured us the Best Overall School trophy again. There were some great performances throughout the day, with winners in Shane Traynor-Canavan (Inter 400m, 400m Hurdles and relay), Sam Samson (Senior 400m Hurdles), Daniel Leporda (Inter Discus), Henrique Nkolovata (Senior Triple Jump), Andre Ferreira (Senior 110m Hurdles), and the inter relay team of Shane, Selassie Seshi-Doe, Ryan Traynor and Kelvin Samson. On now to the All-Irelands with our eye on more medals!
April
Well done to all the athletes who competed at the recent South Connacht Finals. Once again it was an outstanding day for the Red and Black as we qualified 49 athletes in 74 different events for the Connacht Finals in Athlone. This was the largest number of qualifiers by far from any school in Connacht…roll on next week!
February
Connacht Cross Country finals
Unfortunately the promise shown at the South Connacht finals failed to materialize at the subsequent Connacht finals held at a blustery and cold Sligo racecourse in the middle of February. Injuries, unavailability of some top runners and pure under-performance on the day contrived to leave us with our worst result in many years, and one that will make us all the more determined to reverse next year.
Our minor team, with the exception of Enoch Abiodun, ran well below expected and finished out of the medals for the first time in four years. Enoch ran excellently to finish in 10th place (out of 125 finishers) and so qualify for the All-Ireland finals.
Our highly fancied Junior team also had an off day, when despite good runs from Stephen Flaherty, Kevin Hourigan and Husley Tereza we did not have the backing of a strong fourth scorer and finished just outside of the medals.
Our Inters came in as South Connacht champions but once again the elements conspired against us, and despite being in contention throughout, our second placed runner suffered an injury and dropped out of contention, thus leaving us hanging on to the bronze medals. Ryan Traynor -O’Toole ran his usual strong race to finish in a very good sixth place, while the absence of top runner Eoghan Kelly from the race had a major bearing on the outcome.
The seniors, missing their top scorer Sean Kelly, were in good contention for the team medal until Kamil Szymaszek had to drop out due to sickness. Kamil had been running really well, challenging for sixth place at the time, and his loss left us a huge mountain to climb.
So, a disappointing day at the races that leaves us lots of food for thought for the coming track season.
January: South Connacht Cross-Country Finals
On a cold and sleety day in Loughrea St. Mary’s athletes showed that they were made of stern stuff when they successfully qualified all four teams for the Connacht Finals. The day kicked off with the minor (U-14) team beginning their 1500m race in a heavy snow shower, but that did not deter the young lads running
Minor Boys
their first cross-country race for the College. First across the line was Enoch Abiodun, finishing in 11th place out of the 157 competitors. He was followed by his teammates Robert Fleming (25), Jordan O’Connell (28) and Dessie Costello Hynes (38). The combined total of 101 points was enough to win the silver team medals behind Seamount Kinvara. Shane Folliard and Emmanuel Awoponle made up the other members of the team.
Junior Boys
The Junior (U-15) race saw the best Mary’s performance of the day when Stephen Flaherty ran a great race, coming steadily though the field to finish in 4th place out of the 143 who finished. Followed by Kevin Hourigan in 9th, Hakeem Ryan (16th), Husley Tereza (20th) and Francely Lomboto (21st) the combined total of 49 points saw them narrowly lose the gold team medals to a strong Claregalway team. Cian Costello Hynes, Denis Onuoha and Shane Kyne were the other members of the team.
Inter Boys
The Inter(U-17) team showed their considerable class and potential when easily winning the team title. Ryan Traynor-O’Toole ran a great race to finish in 5th place and he was chased all the way by Diarmuid Mulkerrins in 6th place. With great support from Gabriel Dossen (12th) and Rory Owens (13th) they were clear winners of the team event ahead of the Bish, with Garbally College in third place. Henok Dems and Ryan Meja ran great races to finish well up in 24th and 28th place out of the field of 113 finishers, while Ciaran Delargey ran well to complete the team.
Senior Boys team
The seniors also had to slog through a snow shower during their race. The ground was well cut up after eight races and the 5 km course was extremely difficult to negotiate. Nevertheless, they did their best and emerged with the bronze medals behind Calasanctious and HRC Mountbellew. Kamil Szymaszek was first home in 10th place and he was followed by Sam Samson, Dmitri Ipatu, Dylan Delaney, Dylan Neary, Claudio Sangi-Joao and Sean O’Reilly.
So, a great tough day’s cross-country and now its on to the Connacht Finals which will be held on Feb 24th in Sligo.
November: Multi-Events:
Connacht Finals:
St. Mary’s athletes had a very successful outing to the Connacht Multi-Events finals held at the splendid Athlone IT indoor athletics arena in November. Multi-Events involves athletes competing at five events, 60m Hurdles, 200m, 800m , Long Jump and Shot Putt, with points being awarded for performance.
There were 67 entrants in the Minor (U-14 Boys) event, including Francely Lomboto, Stephen Flaherty, Antonio Lingurar, Denis Onuoha and Enoch Abiadun from Mary’s. There were some great individual performances, Antonio was second overall in the Long Jump while Stephen was second in the 800m, but it was the combined performance of Francely that won the bronze medal on the day.
At Junior level (u-15) there were 44 competitors. Foe Mary’s Josh Pyne, Raoof Bazazadegan, Gabriel Dossen and Ryan Traynor-O’Toole took part, and of these Ryan finished best, qualifying for the All-Ireland finals in fourth place.
Samuel Samson once more showed his brilliant versatility and complete dominance of this event, in which he has won two national medals and been selected twice for Ireland, when he once more was a convincing 
winner of the Intermediate Boys (U-17) event. His teammates, Colin O’Reilly, Andre Ferreira and Shane Traynor-Canavan all put in very solid performances, with Shane finishing in 6th place out of 22 entrants.
All-Ireland Finals:
At the following All-Ireland finals, also held in Athlone, Ryan performed quite well but did not feature at the business end of the table. Meanwhile, Sam was in medal contention right up until the very end but it was not to be this year. He recorded personal best performances in the Long Jump (6.24m), 60m H (8.78s) and Indoor 800m (2.09s) but unfortunately, while lying in third position going into the event, a poor set of throws in the shot putt put paid to any chances he had, and he eventually finished a very creditable 6th, a mere 100 points off the medals.
