Bright sunny conditions greeted the runners for the latest round of the Brooks Sussex Cross Country league fixture held at Lancing Manor. The Blue Stars put up some fine performances with Tom Page having his best run of the season to take 6th place in the Under 13 Boys race, running 11m38s for the 3k course. He was supported by Sam Clarke in 32nd (12m53s), Ollie Arnold 37th (13m14s) and Corey Farrel 45th (14m23s) with the team taking 8th place. In the Senior & Under 17 Women’s race, which saw a field of 120 toe the line, Elspeth Turner had a good run to take 12th position in 20m49s. Erin Bateman ran well to take 24th place (21m12s) and with Caroline Wirth in 54th (23m29s) and Megan Allerton 65th (24m37s) the team scored 90 points to take 3rd place. Also competing in this race was Maisie Boast, who took 79th place (25m43s) and Daisy Burchfield 97th (27m58s).

The best team result came in the Under 15 Girls race, where the team took an excellent third place, scoring 28th points, just seven points behind the winning team. Laura Hawrych led the team home in 6th place (18m04s) and she was closely followed by Romy van der Veen, who had another good run to take 7th place (18m14s). Neave Scott in 15th place (19m59s) closed in the scoring team, newcomer Hannah Joels having a creditable first run came in 16th place (20m43s), with Lily Hardwick 17th (20m46s) and another newcomer Harriet Frankland 19th (20m56s).

The Under 17 Men’s race saw Jack Milnthorpe the first Blue Star finisher in 16th place (19m30s), with Chris Best 20th (19m45s), Tom Mackman 23rd (21m09s) and Luke Triccas 25th (23m09s). The team finished in 5th place, but still maintain their fourth overall league position. The Under 15 Boys race saw just two Blue Stars competing, with Jacob Cann taking 29th place (19m28s) and Daniel Allam 33rd (20m33s). Jessica O’Flaherty was the only club representative in the Under 13 Girls race, where she finished a creditable 24th in 14m19s.

The final race of the day the Senior Men’s race saw almost 200 runners face the starter, run over an exacting 8km two lap course with a big climb up to the Downs on both laps, saw veteran Bill Knight lead the team home in 66th place running 34m02s, Chris Lee finished 132nd (39m22s), with Ron Shannon 145th (41m19s) and Stewart Mackman 146th (41m47s), making up the team.