SKIPTON Girls High School have again made an impact on the national stage.

Both their junior and intermediate teams produced good performances in the English Schools Cross Country Championships at Sevenoaks.

The intermediates set the tone for a good day for the Skipton schools – capped by Ermysted's intermediate boys being crowned national champions – by taking sixth place while their promising juniors were ninth.

Alice Jones had won the individual race at the North East round and set off in determined fashion in the intermediate race.

She was one of the early leaders in spite of being at the lower end of her age group. Alice did slide back slightly but was still the best Skipton finisher on the day in seventh place. Next year could well be her time.

Ruby Firth and Lilli Carr swapped places during the race with Carr finishing strongest in 20th and Firth 26th.

Their other runners were Freya Mitchell 104th and Lola Devynck 125th for a team total of 157 and sixth team nationally.

The Skipton Girls’ junior team also performed well with birthday girl Harisah Ghafoor spearheading their challenge.

Ghafoor was well to the fore from the outset finishing 19th. Great support came from Emma Peel 25th and Mia Petrucci 53rd before Hannah Jackson and Emily Shuttleworth battled it out to be their final counter.

Shuttleworth just pipped Jackson as she came back 98th with Jackson 106th and Jenna Boothman 147th.

Their total of 195 saw them come ninth out of the 27 finalists.

Ermysted’s junior team had been runners-up in the North East of England round and knew they wouldn’t be challenging at the sharp end but were going for experience. Donnabhan Rudden was their leading runner and he steadily moved up the field to finish an impressive 24th.

The next two finishers were Rohan Smith and Andrew Robinson who swapped places a couple of times during the race with Smith taking bragging rights as he was 39th and Robinson 50th.

The rest of their team were all Year 7 runners and hadn’t run in a race this big before.

They were all caught out by the speed of the start and then found it hard to move through the field.

First back was Freddie Marsh in 117th with Aryaan Ghafoor 132nd and Dougie Seggar-Staveley 152nd. Their team total of 230 points saw them come 11th of the 27 finalists.

lErmysted's take national crown – Back Page