Another successful sports day for the Saltus Senior School was held on April 20 as everyone came together to compete and support their teams in the house colours.

The day started with a field full of high energy and excitement. Watlington house were returning to keep the first place title for their third year in a row while other teams came in hopes of snatching it away.

Teams sat in house order and cheered as the 100-meter race started with the Year 7s right through to the end of SGY 2. There was definitely no lack of enthusiasm from any team as they cheered every competitor from first to last.

By midday everyone was starting to get more serious about wanting the champion title.

Watlington (yellow), Darrell (blue), Butterfield (green) and Saltus (red) are the school houses that were all named after influential families in 1809 when the school was founded by Samuel Saltus giving his name to his house colour.

The heads of houses are teachers who are the overall captains of each team; they pick the team captains, one boy and one girl, and organise team lists for each inter-school event, of course with a lot of support from the rest of the staff and the always willing participants.

This year's head of houses were Mr. Allen Boardman for Darrell House; Miss Rachael Galvin for Watlington House; Mr. Daniel Dorington for Butterfield House; Miss Esther Keeley for Saltus House.

To liven up lunchtime and jump-start the afternoon spirit, the inter-house tug-of-war was started.

This event had eight people on a team with an even number of both boys and girls.

This is always a popular event but is sadly left out some years due to lack of time.

When it was scheduled in for this year, it was a big deal, not only for the enjoyment factor but also as another means of winning points for the House Cup!

After around 15 minutes of pulling and outrageous amounts of screaming, Watlington walked away with the victory giving them the extra 10 points they needed to push them into the first place slot for the third year running!

After all the events came to an end and the clean up was finished, the points were tallied and the teams gathered to see who would be the 2009 inter-house track and field champions.

They announced all the first place winners, record breakers, including Kevin Simmons who broke both long and triple jump records, champion students and then the big final result everyone was waiting for.

After 17 years of coming fourth place, Watlington took home the gold for the third straight year!