The Cross Country season continued in full force at the weekend at the South East Schools Inter-counties Championships.
Sussex teams were sent for all of the six races at the event held at Writtle College, Chelmsford.
Many of the runners were striving to secure places in the teams for the English Schools championships being held at Liverpool in March.
The top four runners from the Sussex Schools Championships at Waterhall had already been automatically selected.
Changes to selection criteria meant that another two spaces would automatically be allocated to the top two Sussex finishers in each age group in the races on Saturday.
First up were the junior girls where the team took silver and Lana Povey was highest finishing Sussex athlete placing 9th.
Having already secured her place at Waterhall, the two automatic spaces went to Charlotte Airey in 14th and Mabel Ridley in 15th.
Lana was the only athlete who had already secured a space that competed in the Essex races with others choosing to have a break.
Next to run were the junior boys, who collectively placed in 3rd, with Henry Bidwell 8th and Jago Dinnage 11th.
It was team silver again in the inter girls. Bethy Naylor Davis finished in an impressive 6th whilst Ruby Armstrong was 14th.
In the inter boys it was a Sussex battle of brothers between Joe and Ben Stewart with Joe victorious on this occasion in 7th to Ben’s 9th. Both will be heading to Liverpool so “alls well that ends well”.
The senior girls did the double winning both team and individual gold with India Somerville coming out on top.
Frida Rocha took the next qualification place in 4th but others rose to the occasion with Eva Winton 5th, Alice Cox 7th, Niamh Lesova 13th and Greta Hunter 23rd.
First year in the age group, Freddy Boniface, had a fine race in the senior boys finishing in 13th. Also first year, Dominic Airey was the next Sussex finisher in 18th.
Selectors now need to sift through all the results from both races to decide on the final two spaces.