Eleanor Markendale has won the senior girls' heptathlon at the English Schools' North West Regional Combined Events Championships in Stoke.

The Clitheroe Royal Grammar School student, who represents Pendle Athletic Club, also headed the winning Lancashire team as Heather Donald, from Hyndburn AC, was second, and Christina Carr, of Blackburn Harriers, took fourth.

Eleanor will now take part in the individual competition at the English Schools' Championships, while the Lancashire team of Markendale, Donald, Carr and Emma James will represent the North West in the team event.

Markendale set a score of 4654 points, which because the timings were manual, is on a slightly different scale.

It is worth around 100 more points when compared to electronically measured competitions, so compares favourably to her personal best of 4855 points given that the weather was very poor on the second day.

She set a PB of 15.1 seconds in the hurdles and had nearly 1000 points in hand over Donald's 3680 as Carr made 3512.

Heather also managed a PB in the hurdles while Christina set bests in every discipline except the shot.

Lancashire's girls were team winners in all three age groups, but the boys' best was only third in the intermediates, where Blackburn Harrier Liam Monaghan was 14th in the octathlon after suffering an injury.

Club mate Etienne Sharrocks fared little better in the senior decathlon where he failed to clear the opening height of 2.50m in the pole vault after sailing over during the warm up, though he recovered well to finish ninth.

Blackburn Harriers Oliver Aspden and Lee Carruthers were 11th and 18th respectively in the junior pentathlon, with James Blackburn of Pendle AC 19th.