CITY of York Athletic Club made a decent start to the cross-country season with good team performances at both the Northern Relays and in the West Yorkshire Cross-Country League.

The Northern Relays in Sheffield on Saturday saw the Senior Women finish 10th overall and the Senior Men finish 11th, while under-17 runner Finnian Hutchinson came home in first at Cleckheaton on Sunday.

The Senior Women raced first on Saturday, with Charlotte Mason running 12 minutes 37 seconds for the two-mile leg to put the club in 15th place before Georgia Rothwell ran the team's fastest time of 12-35, with Emma Ballantyne running the anchor leg in 13-12.

It was a similar story for the men's team as Luca Parker - making his debut for the senior team - came 14th on the first leg in 10-34, which was then improved by another debutant Tim Stratton (10-36), taking the club up to seventh.

Mark Cage (11-47) and James Tucker (11-02) ran the last two legs as the men's team got home one place below their female counterparts.

The York club had 35 runners racing at Cleckheaton.

Hutchinson was the club's only winner of the day, taking command on the second of three laps to finish 15 seconds ahead of Halifax's Max Burgin in the Under-17s boys' race. Toby Antcliff (sixth) and Kyle McLeay (ninth) also came in the top 10 as York finished second in the team race.

The U17 girls' team also came second as they were led home by Georgia Neary in eighth place.

Three more second-placed finishes came in team events with Joe O'Brien (seventh) leading the U15 boys home while Lottie Langan (fifth) finished narrowly ahead of Frances Hogg (sixth) in the U13 girls' event. Ben Scurrah-Smith (sixth) and Miles Watson (seventh) finished to the fore for the U11 boys.

In the other junior races, Laura Brooks had a fine run to place third in the U11 girls' event, with the team coming ninth.

The Senior Men had a good turnout and were led home by Tucker (18th) in his second race of the weekend. Good packing from Jake Hooley (26th), George Phillips (28th), Danny Figg (29th), Jasper Baker (57th) and Mark Cage (59th) helped the team come fifth.

In the Senior Women's race, Cara Gibbons (18th) was first from the club as the team came 10th overall.