ERMYSTED’S had another excellent day at the First round of the English Schools’ Cross-Country Cup, held at Skipton’s Aireville Park recently.

They won all three boys’ team events, meaning they made it to next month’s North East of England Semi-Final in all age groups.

Aireville proved a testing course as each main lap had two gruelling climbs and a long drag. Ermysted’s Juniors (Year 7/8) were victors in the first boys’ race as Seth Box led their challenge.

Box let the leaders go off on the opening short lap but hoped to reel them back in on the two long laps. He caught up with all but the winner for an excellent second place finish. He was backed up in tremendous style by the other members of his team as Harry Roberts came through strongly in 4th place with Noah Schepisi 6th and Will Parker 7th completing the scoring team.

Their total of just 19 points won the first team event. The school’s non-scorers were Finn Beggan 9th and Joe Bentham 16th.

The Ermysted Intermediate team had high hopes of qualification and sure enough they excelled. George Marsh led from gun to tape and Ermysted’s made it a procession as Will Oakden, Dan Hood and Will Pease occupied the next three places for a perfect team score of just 10 points for the total of their finishing positions and must fancy their chances of making the final in Suffolk. Non scorers Sam Cheung 10th and Will Farrell 14th were highly placed in the field of 21 runners.

For the third time Ermysted’s now also have a senior age group. At this stage there aren’t many senior teams and Ermysted’s fancy their chances of going all the way to the final and even challenging at the sharp end of the race. Sure enough, a very strong team recorded another perfect score recording the first four places home. Sam Bentham put his exertions from the weekend behind him and found a relatively flat run round Aireville Park a nice contrast to Saturday’s Wasdale Fell Race.

Bentham led from the start and came home a clear winner. His team certainly underlined their potential as Ewen Wilkinson, Lachlan Wills and Samesh Chotai came home in procession. Jack Acornley 6th and Seth Linacre 10th were Ermysted’s non-scorers. With a couple of quality runners to add to this team they really should go all the way and be aiming for a team place well inside the top ten nationally.

So, all three teams from Ermysted’s qualified and with low enough scores that they could again make the Final with good runs at the NE of England round at Stewart Park, Middlesbrough on Thursday November 9.

Other notable Craven successes at Aireville throughout the races were well spread out as South Craven had some individual stars as Jacob O’Sullivan won the Junior Boys race, whilst Inter Girls Holly Fitch 2nd and Izzy Patefield 3rd meant the S. Craven Inter Girls team qualified as runners-up.

Skipton Girls also had some star performers as Izzy Wright won the Inter Girls race leading her team to victory, whilst the Junior Girls team also qualified as runners-up thanks to excellent runs from Y7 Alice White who won the race and Maisie Oddy who was third.

Giggleswick had some joy in the Junior Girls Race with a team victory led by Mia McGoldrick who was runner-up. Archie Cole also had a good run in the Junior Boys as he came back in third.

Settle had two notable team performances as they qualified as runners-up in both the Junior Boys and Senior Boys races and so will run in next months Semi -Final at Middlesbrough.