Arena League Division 1 - Round 3
Our cumulative points total from Rounds 1 and 2 was not enough for us to qualify for the promotion final so for the second year running we ended up in the middle final being ranked in 8th place out of the 17 teams in Division 1.
One bonus of being in the middle final was the gala was held at Leigh so not too far to travel. We were up against Bebington, Everton, Halton, Crewe and Carlisle and hoping by the end of the gala that we could at least match our overall ranking of 8th.
The first event being the Open 200m IM and we had Girls Captain, Lily Anna Ireland, swimming this time as Emily Morris was unavailable. Lily-Anna came 4th in what was a very close race, next up was Tom Barton and he kept up his winning streak coming in first ahead of the Crewe Flyers swimmer who pushed him all the way.
Onto the first block of eight relays were we produced some excellent swims with a couple of first place and three second place finishes.
The individual events were next up but we had to wait our first win, this came from 10 year old James Fazakerley who won the Boys 10/11 years 50m Butterfly, then between events 23 and 26 we had three 2nd place finishes from Connie Urumov in the Girls 14/15 years 100m Butterfly, Libby Manning in he Girls Open 100m Backstroke, Criostai Hayden Callen in the Boys Open 100m Backstroke and one 3rd place finish from Ben Shiels in the Boys 14/15 years 100m Butterfly.
By this point in the gala we had a slender from Bebington and Halton with Everton and Carlisle not far behind them. However between events 28 and 42 our swimmers produced some outstanding swims and we had a number of 1st and 2nd place finishes. Tom Wilde won the Boys 10/11 years 50m Breaststroke and Freestyle, Holly Barden won the Girls 14/15 years 100m Freestyle, Tom Barton won the Boys Open 100m Breaststroke and Eric Byrne won the Boys 12/13 years 100m Freestyle and came second in the 100m Butterfly, Erin Jess came 2nd the Girls 10/11 years 50m Freestyle, Olivia Lee came 2nd in the Girls 12/13 years 100m Free and Joe Evans came 2nd the Boys Open 100m Freestyle.
So going into the final block of relays we were in a strong position to win the gala but our swimmers needed to stay focus which they did and we ended up winning the gala by 28 points. However special mention must be given to our Open Boys 6 x 50m Relay team of Criostai Hayden Callen, Eric Byrne, Alex Keegan, Jason Rawlins Williams, Joe Evans and Tom Barton who won the last event and remained unbeaten in all three gala's which was a magnificant achievement considering Eric is only 13!!
Final points;
1st - Garston 197 pts
2nd - Crewe Flyers 171 pts
3rd - Bebington 170 pts
4th - Halton, Carlisle and Everton 169 pts.
Overall an excellent finish to this years Arena League season finishing in 7th place and matching last years achievement. All the swimmers who swam over the three rounds can be proud of what they achieved and the fact in the final gala having one of the judges say what a lovely club we were and how well behaved and polite the swimmers were was really good to hear, well done to all of you!!