Date: April
21 2007
Location:
Sports & Leisure Centre
Event: Southern
Junior League, Round 1, 2007 (25m)
Swindon
Dolphin got
their Southern Junior League campaign off
to a wonderful start with an excellent first round victory in
on Saturday night recording a 43-point win over nearest rivals Trowbridge and finishing
98-points ahead of third place
. Lining up without 2 key swimmers, Samatha
Berry and Katie Carter,
who were summoned to participate in the Inter-County
Centenary Event, Dolphin’s young swimmers amassed 23 first place finishes, 17
seconds and were never outside the top four in the 49-race gala.
The boys’
foursomes were in outstanding form winning 7 of their 8 4×1 relay events. 9
year olds Liam
Jefferies, Adam Coleman, Noah Kirby and Alex
Chantler-Mayne won both their age group 4×1 freestyle
and 4×1 Individual Medley (IM) races as did Jon
Fouracre, Jack Janicki, Niall Westman and Craig
Lofts in the 10s, and James
Clarke, Liam Tubb, Sam Lofts and Tom
Iles in the 12s.
In the boys’
11s Mat
Sambrook teamed up with Westman,
Janicki and Craig
Lofts to win the freestyle relay but they were narrowly
beaten into second place in the IM. The
girls were equally impressive in the 4×1 freestyle relays with Lily
Waite, Lauren Matthews, Michelle Bilko & Charlotte
Pitts winning the 10s and Charlotte
Gardo, Victoria Jennings, Charlotte Pitts and Helen
Bennett taking the honours in the 11s.
In the individual
events Dolphin were only outside the top two in 5 out of the 32 swims. For the 9 year
olds Maddie
Easter took the 25m fly, Noah
Kirby won the 25m breaststroke and butterfly, and Alex
Chantler-Mayne touched first in the
25m free. 10 year old winners included Craig
Lofts (50m free & 50m fly), Jack
Janicki (50
back) and Charlotte
Pitts (50fly & 50brs).
Mat
Sambrook was
on top in the 50 free and 50 Back for the boys’ 11’s and Charlotte
Gardo was on fire winning the girls’ 11 50m fly. 12
year old James
Clarke won the 50 brs in real style and Sam
Lofts was victorious in the 12s 50 backstroke.
Other notable
performances included second place finishes from Niall
Westman (10 & 11 year 50brs), Tom
Iles (12 year 50fly) and Megan
Jones (12 year 50 bk); all losing out on the touch. Rebecca
Saunders (12s 50 brs & 50 free), Liam
Tubb (12s 50 free), Victoria
Jennings (11s 50bk), Lauren
Matthews (10s 50bk), Craig
Lofts (11s 50fly), Maddie
Easter (9s 25 brs) and Victoria
Tainty (9s 25 free) were among the swimmers who also
came second in other exciting races.
Darcy
James (9s), Louise
Gardo (9s), Georgina
Pitts (9s), Lauren
Jolliffe (10s) and Emily
Fouracre (12s) were also in tremendous form.
The final
event of the evening brought the roof down when Dolphin’s mixed 8×1 freestyle relay
team swimmers (Easter,
C Pitts, Bennett, Jones, Kirby, Westman, Sambrook & Iles)
were beaten into second on the touch, having made a couple of errors on takeovers,
by a terrific Trowbridge squad in
a trilling encounter.
A delighted
coach Dean
Fouracre said: “we
had some fantastic
swims from the whole team during this opening Round of the SJL. The
swimmers were helped by the excellent team spirit from the sidelines during the evening,
which was noticed by the other teams and their coaches who applauded the
Dolphin team’s attitude & results after the final event.”
Results:
-
Swindon
Dolphin
– 256 points
-
Trowbridge
– 213
-
Weston-super-Mare
–
158
-
Bath
Dolphins
– 147
-
Bradford
on
– 139
-
Frome
– 98
Debutant Dolphin’s who
were in fine form in the first round of the SJL.
Source: Swindon Dolphin Press team
