Brilliant second placings from the senior boys’ team and Yasmin Kashdan in the Junior girls race highlighted a pretty good afternoon’s racing from the Sussex School’s squad at the South East Inter-counties cross-country at Chelmsford. 
The Essex wind, although not quite as strong as a decade ago when it blew away one of the main marquees and the presentations were abandoned, was still a considerable test for the runners. The course itself was reasonably flat but, like most at the moment, pretty muddy.
The performance of the senior (U19) boys’ team was quite remarkable as they went into the race without the support of their top three runners but they still managed to ward off the attentions of all but the Hampshire team who scored 51 points to the Sussex total of 71 points.
Isaac Elam (Hastings Academy) led the Sussex runners home in his best run of the season finishing a splendid fourth place and indeed Sussex placed their scoring six runners in the top 20 places, which is a considerable achievement. 
Adam Dray (BHASVIC) was 10th, Johan Davies (Bexhill Coll) 12th, Hugo Hewett and Nathan Buckeridge (Hurstpierpoint Coll) 13th, and 14th while Liam Dunne (Chichester Coll) closed in the scoring six in 18th place.
There were several other top twenty places for Sussex runners and in the junior (U15) girl’s race Yasmin Kashdin (Tanbridge House), 
who is a newcomer to the Sussex Cross-country scene ran out of her shoes to place second, a most impressive and promising run. Dulcie Yelling (Varndean), who is in her first year in the age group also had a fine run to finish in eighth place and helped Sussex into fifth team spot.
There was another fourth individual placing for Sussex in the senior girls’ race when the ever reliable Lois Dooley (Worthing Coll) just missed getting amongst the medals and Amy Lennard (BHASVIC) had a good run to finish 20th. 
Unfortunately Sussex failed to complete a scoring six in this event.
In the junior boy’s race Luke Newton (Oriel) looked very promising when finishing fifth and Archie Guppy (Oriel) 14th and the team finished fifth.
The intermediate (U17) girl’s finished fourth in the team race with Amelia Cox (Hazelwick) leading the team home in 10th place, 
probably her best run so far this season while Isabel Guirdham (Mayfield) finished 13th and Poppy Palmer-Malins (Ardingly) 16th.
Another runner new to the Sussex Cross-country scene Blatchington Mill’s Ferdie Parsons led the intermediate boys’ 
team home in an excellent sixth place with Tom Kimber (Tanbridge House) having another good run to place 15th just ahead of Benedict Noon (Gildredge House) in 16th place but they both recorded the same time.
The provisional results will be published on the results page.
Photos by Andy Cox.