Northern High Schools Sports Association executive officer Andrew McCarthy said the introduction of promotion and relegation had spiced up the annual series of carnivals held at St Leonards Athletics Centre. 

At Thursday’s division 3 carnival, Lilydale narrowly defeated St Marys to earn promotion for next year and Monday’s division 2 event saw Brooks take a similar leap forward.

“The kids really love that concept and get really excited about going up,” he said.

“And there’s a real desire to try and avoid being demoted.

“It was really close between Brooks and Port Dalrymple.”

In challenging conditions, Brooks amassed 1264 points as Port Dalrymple fell just short on 1249 followed by Cressy with 1061, Deloraine (969) and St Helens (873).

However, the George Town school had the consolation of claiming the only record on the day.

And it was a huge feat as Ella Jones demolished the existing benchmark of 23.97 metres for the grade 10 girls’ discus by unleashing a 28.10m bomb. 

The impressive throw only narrowly avoided claiming the all-schools record of 28.33m.

“To come that close to the all-schools is not bad at all,” McCarthy said.

“She broke a few records last year as well so is very talented.”

After all three carnivals were postponed due to bad weather in November, McCarthy was delighted to get two completed with division 1 rescheduled for Monday.

“One to go and we’re just hoping for good weather,” he said.

“It’s been unprecedented. We’ve never had to cancel all three before. It must be climate change.

“It was very challenging conditions today. Rain had been forecast and although it held off it was windy and a bit cold.

“It’s very hard to get a day where all schools can agree so coming up with alternative dates took a while. But the kids love their athletics so we were not going to cancel it altogether.

“Eventually we found a date and got it done.”