Match Report: An Amazing Start for Micro B – 19 March

From our poolside reporter Alison Higgins

On a lovely sunny Saturday morning 35 of our B team swimmers set off for Knowsley Leisure Centre for their first Micro B team match of the season, for many it was their first experience of team swimming so there was a lot of nervous excitement on the coach.  

This season the team are competing in Division 2 of the Northwest Micro League with their first match against Chorley A, Garston A and Halton A.  Over the next few months the team will compete in three more matches with other clubs A teams from Blackburn, Liverpool and Burnley Bobcats.  With Chorley having won the first match of the season we were looking forward to seeing how our swimmers would fare against some talented opposition.

First up was the 12 and under medley relay with Sianna Tamlin, Neve Ascroft, Mia Argile and Olivia Jeffery starting with an impressive win.  The boys were next with Jamie Weetman, Benjamin Welsby, Jameson Hall and Harry Watkinson coming a close second to Halton.  Then came the 9 year olds with Jessie Hall, Barnaby Lancaster, Rita Winder and Gabe Bretherton winning the freestyle relay.  The 10 year old boys and girls teams both managed impressive wins in their medley relay events with fantastic swims from Elsa Thomson, Gracie-Mae Ebbs, Grace Daniels, Seren Hayes, Leo Farrow, Ethan Sinkinson, Austin Richardson and Arthur Porter.  The 11 year old freestyle relay team also put in amazing performances with the girls team of Casey Jack, Matilda Carey, Esme Bretherton and Mollie Ingram coming a close second.  The first set of relays ended with another first place with Ethan Sappaso, Joseph Whatton, Isaac Higgins and Frankie Carroll winning the freestyle relay.

This fantastic start meant Leyland were in the lead and gave the team a huge amount of confidence going into the individual events.  All that relay practice in training racing and perfecting our handovers over the last few weeks had clearly paid off.

The individual events saw the team achieve an amazing 24 personal bests with all swimmers fighting to the end to achieve the highest number of points possible for their team.   The swimmers were up against some talented opposition with Leyland securing first place finishes from Casey Jack, Jamie Weetman, Mia Argile, Anastasia Kerr, Jameson Hall, Jessie Hall, and Ethan Sinkinson in their events.

Leyland had maintained their lead going into the final relay events and got off to a fantastic start with Anastasia Kerr, Jessie Hall, Barnaby Lancaster and Gabe Bretherton winning the 9 year old medley relay event.  The other relay teams battled hard with Chorley showing their impressive form from the first match by winning the next four events.  Leyland got back to winning ways with both 12 year old medley relay teams putting in excellent performances.  

After the cannon race the final scores were added up to see who had come out on top. There was a huge cheer as the results were announced; Leyland winning with 137 points, Halton 123 points, Chorley 121 points and Garston 85 points.  If there had been a competition for the noisiest supporters I think Leyland would have won that too!

Team Manager Simon Welsby summed it up brilliantly after the event

“What an absolutely amazing morning and a great team performance.  All of the swimmers should be so proud of what they did today in terms of swimming, behaviour and supporting and cheering one another.  It has been an absolute pleasure to be involved with these brilliant young swimmers”.  

Simon Welsby, Team Manager