Barracudas off to a flying start
On Sunday 1st March our young swimmers competed in the first of four fixtures in Division A of the Micro League North West competition.
The ‘Micro A team’ comprising of 33 swimmers between the ages of 9 and 12 got off to a flying start in an exciting opening match against fiercely competitive teams from Southport, Fleetwood and Ormskirk.
Captained for the season by Emily Wade and Harry Butler the team competed in 49 races comprising of a mixture of relay and individual events.
For the nine year old swimmers – Matilda Carey, Casey Jack, Esme Bretherton, Rosa Dunbavin, Phillipa Rankin, Elijah Ferson, Max Roberts, Daniel Jones, Finlay Metcalfe and Oliver Owens – this was their first match but put in some great performances with the girls winning both their relay events whilst the boys won their medley relay and came second in the freestlye relay.
Tom Jepson was kept busy with a total of 6 swims swimming against 12 year old boys in two of the relays and secured a good individual win in the 50 metre freestyle. He also swam the last leg of the mixed freestyle cannon to achieve a personal best time for 25 metre freestyle and secure joint first place for the team in that particular event.
Individual wins were also recorded for 12 year old Megan Doherty in the 50 metre freestyle, 9 year old Finlay Metcalfe in the 50 metre backstroke and 10 year old Johnny Wright in the 50 metre butterfly.
Throughout the match scores between the top three teams (Fleetwood, Southport and Leyland) were tight with Leyland in joint second place for much of the afternoon.
When the final result was announced – and with a total of 9 wins, 20 second places, 12 thirds and 4 fourth places – there was a big cheer from our swimmers and supporters with Leyland securing victory with a total of 131 points. Fleetwood secured second place (127 points), Southport third (125 points) and Ormskirk fourth (106 points).
Chief Coach, Gillian Rankin was delighted with the result and is now looking forwards to the teams second match in May.