The Sussex Intermediate Girls (U17) turned in a tremendous performance to place equal second in the team event at the English Schools Championships at Birmingham at the weekend.
For the English Schools Championships, the 45 counties are divided into four groups and a decade ago Sussex was moved into the 'A' group of the eleven top counties in the country, according to population. There are no promotions or relegations and the groups stay the same.
For Sussex, which is one of the smaller counties in the group, the team punched well above its weight and although not quite as good as last year, when they won the Junior Girls (U15) group, they had a second, a fourth and a fifth placing in the six age groups.
The Intermediate Girls were in the closest of the battles, with Manchester winning the group with 67 points, Sussex placing equal second with Surrey on 64 points and Essex on 63 points.
Overall Sussex equalled last year’s placing of fifth, a remarkable achievement behind four south-eastern neighbours, which underlined what Sussex is up against in local Inter-county matches.
The Senior Boys (U19) team finished fourth in their group with 50.5 points and the eight-strong, Junior Girls team were fifth with 38.
Both the Intermediate Boys and Senior Girls finished seventh, with 24 and 38 points respectively, while the Junior Boys were eighth with 20 points.
The 70-athlete strong team managed to win a total of 14 medals, four gold, two silver and eight bronze, just one less than last year, while more than half of the team made the finals of their events (40) and 40 athletes also gained either a National or Entry standard.
These results are a tribute to Judy Lasis and Leanne Buxton and a hard working team of managers.