Saltus claimed two individual and three of the four team titles during yesterday’s Senior Schools Cross-Country races at the Arboretum.

Lynsey Palmer and Haley Sullivan of Saltus Grammar School won the under-16 and over-16 girls’ titles, while Quincy Kuzyk of Somersfield Academy took the under-16 boys title.

Tyler Smith of BHS marked his return from a broken foot to race to victory in the over-16 race. Smith, forced to miss last month’s KPMG Front Street Mile because of the injury, ran a strong race to beat Max de Ste Croix of Saltus by 17 seconds with his winning time of 15min, 25.39sec over the four-lap course. De Ste Croix crossed the line in 15:40.74 while Nathan Rego of CedarBridge was third in 17:03.59.

“This is one of my first runs, a chance to test it out and ended up having to go pretty hard as Max de Ste Croix had a great run,” Smith said. “It wasn’t something easy for me, I’m just trying to get my endurance back after taking a couple of months off because of the foot injury.

“I had only gone on one or two runs before this so I was kind of a little concerned about how I would be feeling.”

Smith, who missed the opportunity to face Warwick Academy’s David Darrell in what would have been their final race in the schools’ Front Street Mile, was also denied the opportunity to race against his rival yesterday.

“I was looking forward to racing David but unfortunately he couldn’t make it,” Smith said. “All things considered it was a good race for me.”

Sullivan of Saltus claimed victory in the over-16 girls’ race, the closest of the three as just four seconds separated the podium finishers. Sullivan, leading comfortably early on, had to hold off a late surge from Anna Gilliat of Warwick and Brianna Mendes of Bermuda High School before crossing the line in 14:23.91, just three seconds ahead of Gilliat in 14:26.53. Mendes was close behind in 14:27.14 to take third.

“I’ve been swimming for the past week so my legs are really tight,” Sullivan said. “My coach has kept me going, last year I came third so the goal was to win this year. They [Anna and Brianna] gave me a good fight. I’m not really a big runner so the time doesn’t matter for me.”

Quincy Kuzyk of Warwick won the under-16 boys race, also over three laps, in 11:20.23. Johndelle Cumberbatch of Saltus was second in 11:43.73 and Kaden Hopkins, also of Saltus, completed the top three with his time of 11:51.28.

Lynsey Palmer won the under-16 girls’ race in the absence of another favourite Ashley Irby, the Front Street Mile winner, who was not feeling well.

“I wasn’t quite sure how far behind me they were so I was just trying to keep pushing through but the hills were really tough especially with the heat,” Palmer said.

Saltus won the title in the under-16 girls and boys divisions, as well as the over-16 boys title, while Berkeley took the over-16 girls’ crown, by just a single point over Warwick and four points ahead of Saltus.