TEAM Borders secured their place at the top of the Forth Valley League last Saturday.

A second victory of the season at Craigswood in Livingston sees them move two points clear of nearest challengers Edinburgh AC going into the final match at the end of this month.

It was another very close contest in what turned out to be excellent warm and sunny conditions with Team Borders amassing 441.5 event points to Edinburgh’s 427.5.

The track events kicked off with the U13 Boys’ 75m Hurdles and Chirnside’s Kyle Taylor gave a very proficient alternate-leg display of hurdling in taking 2nd place in 13.2s.

Finn Douglas of TLJT stormed home in 24.3 for a clear win in the U15 Boys 200m ‘A’ race despite the fatigue of a 30-hour bus journey from the south of France the previous day.

Clubmate Brogan Beattie was another who did well to fight off “bus-lag” to take 2nd place in the U15 Girls’ ‘A’ race in 27.3. There were also ‘B’ 200m wins for the TLJT duo Charlie Robbie 31.3 in the U11 Boys and Neco Lennie, 30.2 in the U13 Boys.

This match saw the U11 age-group compete over 600m and Gala’s Ross Christie was a convincing winner of the Boys’ race in a time of 1.51.9.

Charlie Robbie took his second ‘B’ win of the day in 1.58.4.

The U13s and U15s raced over 1500m and Gala’s Gregor Collins had his customary fast start in the U15 Boys’ race, striding straight into a significant lead from the gun.

He gave the Borders supporters a few nervous moments as he started to tire on the last lap but as the challengers closed, Gregor picked up again down the home straight to take the win by a couple of seconds at the line in 4.29.1.

In the U13 Boys’ race clubmate Cameron Rankine dipped under five minutes for the first time when taking 2nd place with a time of 4.59.0.

In the field events there were as many four ‘A’ and ‘B’ double wins.

In the U15 Girls’ High Jump Imogen Lewis (Moorfoot) cleared 1.40m to take the ‘A’ win on countback, with Hannah Hamilton-Meikle (Chirnside) taking maximum ‘B’ points with 1.35m.

Hannah’s wee brother Hamish then heaved the U11 Boys’ shot out to 6.78m, well over a metre further than anyone else. The second best throw of the day of 5.48m was recorded by the very busy Charlie Robbie who notched up his third ‘B’ win of the day.

The other two double-wins came in the U13 Javelin.

In the Girls event Keira MacGregor (Chirnside) scored a resounding ‘A’ win with 18.94m and Gala’s Maria Imray won the ‘B’ event with the second longest throw of the day 14.36m.

It was a similar story in the Boys event for the Chirnside duo of Kyle Taylor and Harris Ross. Kyle reached 22.93m and Harris 21.47m, being denied a big last throw by a marginal red flag.

There was a further ‘A’ win in the field from Logan Kerr (TLJT) who leaped to 4.39m in the U13 Boys’ Long Jump and a highly creditable performance in the U15 Boys High Jump for novice jumper Patrick Cannon (Moorfoot) who cleared 1.60m.

Grangemouth is the venue for the final match on June 23 as Team Borders go for a fourth consecutive Forth Valley League title.