Tasmania have won the 2015 Australian Schools Orienteering Championships after a dramatic finish in the relays on Wednesday, beating the ACT by a single point. It all came down to the senior girls’ relay. Once Tasmania had finished in third place, the ACT, who had gone out in fourth, needed to finish fourth to win outright or fifth to tie. They hung in there better than anyone expected, but Asha Steer of Victoria went through the ACT’s Emily Alder on the second half of the course, and Bo Davie (WA) also caught up to take a 50-metre lead at the spectator control with a few minutes of the course to go. Despite some ups and downs in the closing stages, that was more or less the gap at the end, as Davie (probably wondering why she was being frenetically cheered by every Tasmanian present) held off Alder in a sprint finish.

Tasmania achieved their result with consistency today across the age groups. They did not win any of the relays, and were second in only one of them – the senior boys, where Joseph Dickinson successfully defended, just, a two-minute gap on the fast-closing Victorian Patrick Jaffe, to hold second in a critical result – but got at least fourth in every class. The ACT were the leading state in both junior classes, finishing behind New Zealand in both junior boys and junior girls, and although they got more than expected out of their seniors – led off by Tara Melhuish putting three minutes into the rest of the field on the opening leg – it was not quite enough.

New Zealand also took out the senior girls, Georgia Creagh taking control of the race on the second leg to send Danielle Goodall out with a two-minute break on Winnie Oakhill, although there was a scare at the end when the gap shrank from two minutes to less than 30 seconds on the final loop.

The one race not won by New Zealand was the senior boys. Queensland’s strategy of running Joshua Morrison first and then handing over to their two front-liners, Simeon Burrill and Riley de Jong, paid off in spades as Morrison came back almost on the lead pack. From there, Burrill dominated the second leg to put four minutes into the field and the result was never in serious doubt from there.

Final scores:

Australian Schools Championships: Tasmania 62, ACT 61, Victoria 54, Queensland 54, NSW 41, SA 38, WA 22.

Southern Cross Junior Challenge: NZ 89, Tasmania 63, ACT 63, Victoria 56, Queensland 55, NSW 41, SA 39, WA 22.

Results from the relay are available.