Joe Beamish held his nerve on the final lap to help John McGlashan College win its third successive senior boys title in the annual Caversham road relays yesterday.
The John McGlashan team of Ed Davies, Chris O'Connell, Robert Jopp and Beamish won the race on the King's High School course in 22min 58sec.
They were followed home by King's High School (23min 01sec) and Otago Boys' High School (23min 09sec).
John McGlashan was level-pegging at the end of the second and third laps with Otago Boys' runners Bayley Brandham and Christian Blackie. King's was 6sec back in third place.
Beamish quickly dropped Ben Wardhaugh (Otago Boys') and took McGlashan into the lead on the last lap.
But the threat was coming from Jonah Smith (King's), who was running the race of his life and was closing the gap on Beamish as the runners passed Queen's High School.
''I could hear the clatter of feet behind me and knew I had to push it hard to the finish,'' Beamish said.
Beamish has done the hard yards and the long mileage in training and knew he had the strength to hold off any challenge in the last 500m.
He intends to spend six months training at the village of Iten in Kenya next year to advance his running goals.
Sam Bremmer (Kavanagh) ran the fastest senior boys time with 5min 08sec and was followed by Jonah Smith (King's, 5min 20sec) and Beamish (5min 24sec).
Aggressive running by the English sisters helped Columba College turn the tables on St Hilda's Collegiate and win the senior girls race.
St Hilda's had dominated the event for the past six years but Columba closed the gap to just 4sec last year.
There was no mistake this year as the Columba College team of Sian English, Emma Winders, Holly Barclay and Hanna English won by 31sec from St Hilda's. The time was 26min 23sec.
Sian English set a cracking pace on the first lap and finished 39sec in front of St Hilda's in a time of 6min 04sec.
Isabella Becconall-Ryan ran one out of the box to take the Columba College junior B team into second place at the end of the first lap. She was a second in front of the St Hilda's senior team's first runner, Sophie Russell.
St Hilda's second runner, Harriett Keown, knew there was a lot of catch-up work to be done and closed the gap to Columba to 17sec at halfway.
Millie Gordon reduced the margin to just 10sec by the end of the third of the four laps.
Hanna English knew that the pressure on her and she sprinted out of the blocks to stretch the winning margin to 31sec. Her time was 6min 15sec.
The English sisters had the two fastest times in the senior girls event and were followed by Harriet Keown (St Hilda's) and Jessie Murphy (Kavanagh), who were third-equal with 6min 36sec.
The Otago Boys' team of Brayden Crombie, Liam Turner, Jacob Beal-Harris and Matt Ogle won the junior boys race in 24min 17sec.
The St Hilda's team of Anna Power, Mikayla Thorn, Holly White and Polly Davies won the junior girls race in 28min 37sec.
The Queen's team of Sarina Hicks, Tegan Booth and Madeline Witchell won the AWD event in 52min 58sec.
The Kavanagh team of Tim Morrison, Jessie Murphy, Caitlin Buist and Sam Bremmer won the senior mixed relay in 25min 14sec and its junior team of Ben O'Farrell, Nadia Kerr, Anna O'Leary and Tom Henderson won the junior mixed relay in 28min 50sec.
