Match Report – Micro ‘B’ Team [2 July]
[Thanks to our poolside reporter Alison Higgins]
Our last match of the season was a home match against A Teams from Blackburn Centurions, Liverpool and Burnley Bobcats and saw us drawn in lane one with lane five being used for additional swims. After last weeks amazing performance at Halton, with a massive 48 personal best times swum the team were full of confidence going into the match. After 3 matches Leyland B were sitting top of Division B with 439 points, 20 points ahead of 2nd place Halton.
This was the final league match for our 12 year old swimmers Mia Argile, Neve Ascroft, Megan Billington, Olivia Jeffery, Sianna Tamlin, Jameson Hall, Jamie Weetman and Benjamin Welsby who all set a fantastic example throughout the season for the younger swimmers. The girls got off to an amazing start winning the medley relay in style, special mention to the lane 5 swimmers who managed 3rd place ahead of 2 A teams! In the individual events we had first place finishes from Megan Billington in the freestyle, Neve Ashcroft in the Breaststroke, Jameson Hall in Butterfly and Jamie Weetman in the Backstroke. The girls then finished off with a fantastic first place finish in the freestyle relay with the boys also coming second in both their relay events.
Our 11 year old swimmers also performed brilliantly successfully holding off strong challenges from Blackburn to come first in all relay events. Individual events saw first place finishes for Esme Bretherton in the Breaststroke and Isaac Higgins in the Freestyle with plenty more 2nd place finishes against strong A team opposition.
Blackburn once again challenged in the 10 year old relay events with the girls team doing brilliantly to hold them off in the medley relay followed by another win from the boys. There were more fantastic performances in the individual events with Grace Daniels, Austin Richardson, Elsa Thomson and Seren Haynes all taking first place.
Giving us another glimpse of the bright future ahead our 9 year olds were on top form once again with the mixed relay team coming 1st and 2nd in both relay events. There were lots of brilliant individual swims too with Anastasia Kerr, Jessie Hall and Barnaby Lancaster winning their events.
Going into the final cannon event Leyland were in the lead and whilst I couldn’t hear much downstairs Head Coach Gillian got the team going with chants of “Lets go Leyland”. Leyland entered two teams in lanes 1 and 5 and it was Leyland vs Leyland all the way with lane 5 leading at several points in the race. After a really exciting race lane 1 ended up with the win (just!). Beating three lots of A team opposition just goes to show what fantastic swimmers we have in the club and how lucky we are to have such an amazing coaching team who are so committed and dedicated to developing our swimmers.
Final results were – Leyland B 158, Blackburn A 118, Burnley A 99, Liverpool A 64
Team manager Simon Welsby said after the match “Where do I start…..awesome yet again from a wonderful group of swimmers. They should all be so proud of themselves.”
Special thank you to Simon, Gillian and all the volunteers who have helped to make this a great season, giving so may of our swimmers the opportunity to compete.
The final match in Division B is next week which will determine where we finish in the league – whatever happens, our swimmers have definitely given their all; every single point matters and they have all shown incredible team spirit. Well done everyone!