Katie Atkinson produced another impressive winning performance for Skipton Girls High School.

She won the junior girls race at the North East England Schools finals and helped her team to top spot too.

It means that Atkinson and her colleagues will now be competing in the National finals at Southend on November 30.

Ermysted’s intermediate boys team were also victorious and qualified for the nationals along with their junior team who finished third on Saturday at Guisborough.

The races involved 12 teams of six who qualified by virtue of top three finishes in last month’s regional rounds.

What makes Skipton’s success more impressive is the fact that all of their team members are year seven pupils and have another year in this age group.

Atkinson and the team have been nigh on unbeatable this year.

The graceful Atkinson ran within herself in the early stages and just tracked the opposition around the first field.

However, she put her foot down as she ran back past the start and finish area.

She ran away from the opposition to win comfortably but her place in the national finals would only be assured if her team qualified.

They didn’t let her down. Ruby Schofield ninth, Eleanor Root 10th and Emily Jones 11th came in well before any other team and their total of 31 points not only won the day but suggests they have serious national title ambitions.

Their non-scorers were Ang- elina Bairstow 19th and Hannah Raistrick 30th oin a field of 72.

The Ermysted’s Intermediate team were fourth in the national final two years ago when they were last at the top of their age group and they achieved their goal of qualifying again.

The boys had to run two figure of eight laps round a flattish course at Guisborough.

Jimmy Lund was the only year nine student running in this Y9/10 team and he led the way for Ermysted’s.

He was 12th after the cavalry charge start and worked hard to claim several places before finishing eighth. The best thing about this side is its strength in depth and once again that was evident from the outset. At one point Ermysted’s had every one of our runners in procession from 12th to 17th position.

They kept working hard and helped each other maintain their high placings. Round the second lap the close grouping was split-up as Matthew Jackson and Luke Thompson moved forward. Thompson finished 12th while Jackson had his best-ever race for the school as he came 13th.

The final counter for the team was George Maloney. He was 17th to give the team a total of 50 points that was good enough for victory.

George Roe was 19th, Matt Thom- son 23rd and Ben Archer, the team’s guest runner, was 20th.

The juniors were believed to have only an outside chance of progressing to the final, but they did it.

Will Thompson led Ermysted’s home in 12th, with Tom Barrett 16th, Jonny Thompson 22nd and Ben Jackson 23rd.

Sam Jackson was 25th while Joel Phillip tripped up as he was caught up in the tape marking out the course.

Although he worked through the field he couldn’t catch his team-mates but did finish well in 33rd.

The team’s total of 73 was just outside the target of 70 points that is usually required to qualify so they faced a nervous wait before they heard that they had secured third team place and a trip to the Essex seaside. The Skipton Girls High School intermediate team also ran on Saturday and they came a very creditable fifth of the 12 teams, but just missed out on qualification for the final.

Tily Malechi had another strong run while Lizzie Joynson. Hannah Thom and Ellie Coones battled hard for their school.