WILL BATTERSHILL and Poppy Tank will lead Devon’s charge at the English Schools’ Cross Country Championships in Nottingham on Saturday.

The pair both claimed top five places last season at Blackburn in their first year at senior level.

Ivybridge Community College pupil Battershill, fifth last year, will go into the championships at Wollaton Park in confident mood after his impressive seventh place at under-20 level in last week’s National Cross Country Championships, where he beat 2015 English Schools’ winner Mahamed Mahamed.

Great Britain youth international Battershill will be joined in a strong Devon senior boys’ team by his Ivybridge Community College and Erme Valley Harriers team-mates Nathan Brown and Owen Parkin, as well as Tavistock Community College’s Will Dax and Devonport High School for Boys pupils Tom Blackford and Jack Williams.

Plymouth College pupil Tank, who is set to take up a scholarship in the United States after finishing her A Levels this summer, came fourth at last year’s English Schools’ Cross Country Championships.  She has also been in good form this year.

Joining her in Devon’s senior girls’ team will be her Plymouth College team-mate Seren Allin, Plymouth Studio School’s modern penathlete Kerenza Bryson and Mount Kelly’s Victoria Moore.

Tavistock Athletic Club’s Tess Masselink, who is a Callington Community College pupil, will be running for Cornwall in the senior girls’ race.

Mount Kelly’s Natasha Farrington and Plymouth High School’s Jenny Milburn will line up for Devon in the junior girls’ race at Nottingham, where Torquay Grammar School’s Molly Canham will lead the team.

Ivybridge Community College’s Sam Yearling is also in the Devon junior boys’ team.

View the full Devon squad HERE