ERMYSTED’S athletes are celebrating after scooping three titles in the National Schools Fell Running Championships.

Their Year 10/11 and Year 12/13 teams struck gold and played a big part in them lifting the Best Overall School award.

In addition to their three titles, the Year 8/9 team were runners with the Year 7s coming third.

Team manager Stephen Speak said: "The icing on the cake then came at the final presentation as we found out the results of the overall schools competition.

"Ermysted’s find it hard to win the overall event as we only have boys. However with such good showing in the four races we can enter, 23 were indeed crowned Best Overall School.

"This was another great day on the fells and one that I can guarantee we will remember.

"Congratulations to all concerned on another magnificent achievement. It was a great way to start our season and it does make it all so worthwhile."

The warm weather certainly seemed to agree with the Skipton School's runners in an event hosted by Giggleswick School.

The Year 7s were first away and set off at a fair lick across a flat field until they met the hill and suddenly everyone knew the difference between fell and cross-country races.

Even the leaders were brought to little more than walking pace as they strained manfully to get to the top.

Will Oliver led the way for Ermysted's with Freddie Smith, Dougie Seggar-Staveley and Owyn Applegarth close behind.

When they came back Smith had moved ahead of his team-mates to finish 16th, Seggar-Staveley 26th and Applegarth 32nd.

Their total of just 74 points for the first three home gave them third place.

Ermysted's non-scorers, who all shared in their team’s success, were Laurie Powell 36th, Will Oliver 39th, Ed Whitlam 41st, Will Caygill 46th and Sam Gokhale 56th.

The Y8&9 team were next and we had high hopes for Alex Thompson who was soon in a trio who pulled well clear of the rest of the field.

Thompson pushed hard for the individual title, however, he had to settle for second place after a brave run.

Hamish Wills 20th and Ben Rees 23rd helped secure second place in the team event.

The school’s non-scorers, were Donabhan Rudden 29th, Andrew Robinson 50th, Tom Ashley 61st, Will Atkinson 73rd, Elliot Wood 82nd and Andrew Clay 90th.

After being runner up for the past three year, Louis Hudson was in a leading bunch at the top of the hill ,but was left once the ground flattened and the leaders pushed on.

He stuck to his task and came back in fourth place, just ahead of Harvey Lewis 7th and Sebastian Seggar-Staveley 12th.

Their total of 23 points gave Ermysted's their first team title. The non scorers were Joe Carnelley in 14th, Will Thompson 30th and Laurie Petrucci 35th.

The seniors had to run five miles with nearly 300 metres of climb.

Ermysted's were strong favourites with Joe Hudson and Tom Barrett having run for England the previous weekend. They also had former international Jimmy Lund in their team.

Hudson led the way up the hill but couldn’t shake off two of his rivals who eventually pulled away.

In fact Joe’s medal looked in jeopardy as Lund looked like he might catch him.

Hudson eventually came back third with Lund fourth. With Barrett crossing the line in 13th place, Ermysted's scooped the team title with 20 points.

The non-scorers were Sam Jackson 23rd, Alex Ashby 30th and Sam Thom 32nd.