Winter League 2013 - Droitwich
05 Mar 2013
Tough at the top for Pershore Swimmers
When Pershore Swimmers travelled to Droitwich for Round One of the Worcester Winter League this being the first time they had ever entered the league they had a tough awakening in this annual competition to find the premier club in Worcestershire. Just 22 members, by far the smallest squad present on the night, pitted their wits against clubs able to draw on open age group swimmers being 16 and above such as Redditch and Stourbridge.
The only swimmers from Pershore able to manage a win were Josh Sharratt in the boys 11/u 50m fly (38.96) and 13 year old Tazmin Pugh in 100m Fly (1:08.71). They were joined by a handful of 2ndplaces from Pugh once again in the girls 13/u back (1.09.07) and 15/u back in (1:11.36) together with10 year old Simon Sweatman in the 11/u 50 free (30.92) and 11/u back (36.98) and 14 year old Harry Sykes in a nip and tuck battle in the 100m breaststroke (1:15.57).
Gallantly taking four 3rd places were Chloe Naughton in the girls open age group 100m fly (1:12.66) with swim of the night perhaps going to Owen Leeks with a 2 sec pb and a belated County Qualifying time in the boys 13/u 100m backstroke (1:16.80) together with eleven year old Naomi Marsden in the 50m freestyle (35.69) and Chris Vizard in the 11/u breaststroke (49.69).
Apart from the mixed 11/u freestyle 6 x 25m relay where a team made up of Megan Annis, William Gearey, Amy Weston with Sharratt, Marsden and Sweatman mentioned above taking a fine 2nd place. The other relay teams seemingly took on more than they could chew throughout the remainder of the evening unable to make any meaningful impact in top placing due in no small way to their inadequately small squad for this type of league suffering from half term holiday commitments previously arranged by club members.
Other members succeeding in scoring valuable points were brothers Angus and Drew Jones, Amy Weston, Hope Rochell, Hannah Kenwright, Hannah Simister, Emily Burton, Katie Sharratt, Lizzie Vizard, together with brothers Angus and Michael Evans and brother and sister David McManus and Helen Annis valiantly swimming at late notice in the Open age group (16+) section.
In the end Pershore lost 4th place by just 3 pts with Redditch A recording a great win from Stourbridge A and Redditch B taking 3rd.