Severn AC ended the cross-country season in dramatic fashion, avoiding relegation from Division Two of the Birmingham League by a point.
Going into the final fixture at Wolverhampton, the club sat 16th in the table, knowing they would need to pull out all the stops to climb out of the drop zone.
Undeterred, eight athletes took to the start line and set to work.
Harry Bishop, already confirmed as the League's Under-20 champion, was initially inside the top 10 in a high quality field, sitting just behind the lead group until tghings went wrong after the first lap.
Going through thick mud Bishop's spiked shoe came off, leaving him to complete a whole lap with a bare foot.
Understandably this slowed him down, dropping him from inside the top 10 to outside the top 40.
However, his spike was retrieved and he stopped to put it back on before the final lap, then set off on a desperate charge to regain positions.
This lifted Bishop back up to 32nd with a time of 33 minutes 15 seconds – first among his team-mates but well behind overall winner Ross Jones, a Wolverhampton AC man who set a time of 30.05 on his home turf.
Bishop could console himself with a series bronze medal as third, fourth and fourth in the league's other fixtures was enough to clinch third place in the overall standings.
Close behind Bishop was Severn's double-act of Oliver Starkey and James Rose, who were nowhere off the start line as others set a quick pace, but both men refused to panic and worked together to cut through the field once it started to spread out, rising from around 80th position to inside the top 40.
Keen to avoid a sprint-finish, Starkey stepped up the pace in the final lap, gaining a few metres over Rose and two other rivals and maintaining the gap to the finish line, securing 36th place to Rose's 38th.
Their times were 33.42 and 33.49 respectively.
Severn's fourth and fifth scorers were veterans Mark Keeling and Ian Smith, who had an entertaining race, with Smith catching Keeling but then falling victim to the latter's burst of speed, meaning Smith remained in 84th while Keeling surged forward to 81st, clocking 35.48 to Smith's 35.54.
Completing the team was Steve Bradley, who was disappointed with his race as he over-estimated the distance and started too slowly, but still secured 91st in 36.07 after an energetic sprint finish saw him pass four rivals.
Sam Turner and Austin Blackburn didn't score for the team but played an equally vital role in the scrap to avoid relegation, occupying positions and pushing other clubs' scoring runners further down the field.
Turner secured 111th with 37.00, while Blackburn was 141st in 38.10. Crucially, both men were ahead of relegation rival Dudley RC's sixth scorer. Once everyone was across the line, a nervous wait ensued while the officials did their arithmetic.
It turned out a team score of 362 points, good enough for eighth place on the day, was just enough for Severn to pip Dudley and Kingswinford RC to 15th place in the overall standings after a season's total of 2,237 points to Dudley's 2,238.
