Sale had another successful day in the fourth match of the MACCL league at Woodbank Park. In the U11 age-group Tia Blissett had a great run and finished 3^rd and with Lizzie Twite 4^th and Beth Thornton 10^th, the team finished 2^nd to Manchester Harriers. In 3^rd team place were the Sale 'B' team of Fay Malloy, Jemma Vickers, and Verity Garnes. The boy's team of James Malloy 8^th, Luke Chesters 12^th and Harry Boyd 17^th finished in 3^rd place.

In the U13 races, Sale won the girl's and boy's team races but the girls had five of the first six finishers with Ciara Lydon 2^nd, Olivia Green 3^rd, and Claudia Cowan 4^th. Sale now need to win the last match at Clayton Vale to draw level on points with League leaders Stockport AC. The Sale 'B' team of Francesca Brint, Alice Bruce and Franki Reid finished 3^rd for the team. What is even more remarkable is that the team were without Ellie Twite who is resting from her exertions the day before when she won the Cheshire Schools title with fellow Sale Harrier Aine Cunningham in 2^nd place, both girls gaining Cheshire selection. Team wise, the boys went one better than the girls with the club gaining the first two team slots with Jake Spilsbury, Adam Spilsbury, Michael Quinn, Saeed Absiyeh, Joe Hammond and Dillon Burchill. Having won every match Sale are already the U15 boy's champions.

Sale had further team victories in both the girl's and boy's team events. Catherine Podmore led the girl's team home in 5^th place followed by Hannah Simeen 6^th and Flora Whyte 8^th. At present, they lie 2^nd overall to Stockport and need to win the last match to pull level. The boys that won every match so far and have already won the league. The winning team this time was Euan Gilchrist 3^rd, Sam Mayon 5^th and Dillon Stanway 8^th.

The U17 men's team are another team who have already done enough to win the league but on this occasion had to be content with runner's-up spot with Kyle Conway 5^th, Alex Bradford 8^th and Khalid Absiyeh 11^th. County Champion Megan Davis won the U17 women's race with Chloe Yates 8^th. Provided they finish a team in the last match Sale will finish a team overall.

With just over one hundred starters, it was the smallest senior women's field of the winter and with most of our leaders who'd put the club into contention to win the title absent, they slipped to seventh.  On this occasion, Hayley Cavill was the first counter in 18^th place; Jan Nicholls was 4th in the L40 category, and produced her best position so far; Alison Pye, Helen Reagan, Zoe Gmerek and Belinda Hammond retained admirable consistency in tough conditions and congratulations to Jackie Cordingly 2^nd L50 and Jenny Miles 3^rd in L60 category. Both are in contention to win their age-groups categories. With four of the five matches to count, they can still pull it back in the final match. The 'B' team finished a much improved 12^th

The senior men consolidated their position on top of the league with 3^rd place and are likely to take the title. It's been great to have Gaz Raven return from injury and improve from 35^th in the first match to 2^nd place. The other significant thing of this match was that our first ten finishers - Gaz, Pete Crawford, Phil Scowcroft, Gary Rowlinson, Mike Kilmartin, Elton Davies, Paul Barrett, Andy Mooney, Steve Gavin and Bill Fox all substantially improved their finishing position and this bodes well for the Northern Cross country championships in Pontefract next week end. (Fechin Mc Cormick & Peter Shaw)