Sunbury Little Athletics Centre has three teams through to the Little Athletics Victoria 2017 State Relay Championships.
The teams, which will compete at Albert Park on Saturday, qualified for the event following the Northern Region Relay Championships last month.
Sunbury had 22 relay teams compete at the Northern Region champs, with six teams winning medals.
The under-9, under-12 and under-14 mixed 4 x 100 metre teams all ran times that were fast enough for them to qualify for the state championships.
Only first-placed teams automatically qualified for the state championships, while the other teams qualify depending on times.
The under-9 team, made up of Joshua John, Natalie Arbanas, Amelia Haxby and Liam Joyce, finished third at the region titles as did the under-12 team, consisting of Jameson Haxby, Brianna Mastin, Lucas Arbanas and Maddison Vowles.
Abbey McDonald, Jordan Van Pelt, Liam Denner and Elias Kahsay will compete in the under-14s team.
Centre president David Thies said they were thrilled with the results from the region championships.
“It can be hard with the relays as it’s at the start of the season,” he said.
“For a lot of the kids it’s the first time competing at that level, with a lot of new kids in the program.”
Thies said those athletes heading to the state championships were excited to compete at the state’s number one athletics championships.
Overall, Thies said it looked like it would be another good season for the Sunbury LIttle Athletics centre.
After breaking a club membership record last season, the centre is hopeful of having 200 plus members this season.
“Currently we have about 186 members and we’ve got another 25 kids who are going to come and try it out,” Thie said.
“Last year was the first time we’ve had more than 200 members and we’re hoping to crack that in the new year.”
