On Saturday 17th June the B team travelled to Rugby for the last round of this year’s Nuneaton Junior League campaign. Unfortunately the team was severely depleted, with our nine’s and ten’s boys down on numbers as well as the ten’s and eleven’s girls. May I take this opportunity to remind parents and swimmers how important this league is! Nuneaton Junior League dates are made available many months in advance and appear on our fixtures list. Next years dates are already on the League’s website. These should be kept free wherever possible, and swimmers’ availability does have an impact on future selection. This did mean that extra recruits had to be drafted in so we welcome two new members to the Stourbridge ‘B’ Diddy League Team, twins Emily & Kay Bennett.

Anyway, enough of the negativity and onto something positive! The swimmers’ performances! Our competition on the night was Solihull ‘B’, Wednesbury, Hinckley ‘B’, Northampton ‘B’ and Droitwich Dolphins ‘B’.

WOW – what a night! I firstly must thank all those swimmers that did turn out and had to swim up an age group as well as doing their own. In particular Ryan Sharpe and Tom Warner who both deserve a pat on the back for the part they played in this gala. The swimmers were determined to make this year’s final, and did not let the fact that we didn’t have every swimmer put them off!

The gala started and Stourbridge piled the pressure on the other teams by taking first place in events one and two, the girls/boys 10 years 50m free. Beth Hendy stormed to victory a clear 4 seconds ahead of the rest with a PB, and Jarryd Aston-Baugh also took first place with a PB time, two seconds ahead of the second placed Northampton B swimmer. What a cracking start!

The next wins of the evening came from ten year olds again, but this time Emily Sheppard and Connor Meehan in the 50m breaststroke. Not one to let Beth get the better of her Emily also won her event by four seconds, well done!

Now unfortunately the next bit isn’t quite so positive, the girls 9 year medley team did so well, winning their event by a good half a length, only to be disqualified for a faulty take over! Girls hopefully you have learnt from this mistake and we can make sure we hold onto those 6 points in future!

Never mind, another victory was not far around the corner with the boys 11 years freestyle relay taking 6 points. They were Sam Donaldson, Jarryd Aston Baugh, Jack Hartshorne and Luke Shaw. Great stuff boys.

The girls ten years medley relay team were the next to grab a win with the team a clear five seconds ahead of the rest of the field, and this was with two nine’s girls swimming up! Well done to Beth Hendy, Emily Sheppard, Hannah Irwin and Megan Dudley.

Another individual victory now and Kate Fletcher took first place in the eleven’s girls 50m backstroke. This was closely followed by the fab foursome in the girls’ nine years freestyle relay. Keen not to repeat their earlier mistake the girls got it right this time with a victory for Hannah Irwin, Beth Hickman, Kay Bennett and Megan Dudley. The girls really showed Stourbridge ‘B’s dominance of this age group in Divison 3, finishing NINE seconds ahead of the second placed team, Wednesbury.

Another individual victory now for Dan Sheppard. Keen to emulate his sister’s success in her breaststroke event, Dan won the boys 12 years 50m breaststroke, just touching the Solihull swimmer into second place. Well swum Dan.

Time for a points update now at approximately the half way stage, and Stourbridge ‘B’ were lying in second place with 97 points, only seven points behind Northampton with 104 points and ahead of Wednesbury (76), Solihull B (63), Droitwich (57) and Hinckley (55). Things were looking good with a chance of the final looking more likely, but there was still more swimming to be done!

It was the turn of those ever successful tens again now, in their freestyle relays, and what a couple of performances! The girls (Emily Sheppard, Megan Dudley, Emily Bennett and Beth Hendy) stormed to victory taking the 6 points by a clear three seconds. This was again with two nine year olds swimming up, a fantastic performance girls, well done. But now the boys…what with our depleted team I was forced to swim Ryan Sharpe and Tom Warner (both nine and fairly small) up in this relay. Together with Connor Meehan and Jarryd Aston-Baugh I gave the boys a pep talk and told them not to expect to much, just to give it their all, and do it legally! Well…I think I spoke to soon, I’m afraid I had to sheepishly swallow my words as Jarryd went flying past me on the last leg to grab second place for the team! This was an amazing achievement for these swimmers, and possible the race of the night for me!

Anyway, enough of that, Kate Fletcher was on the blocks again, meaning surely another 6 points? Yes, not one to disappoint me, Kate led right from the start to take victory in the girls 11 years 50m fly by four seconds. Next individual victory came from Becky Irwin in the girls 12 years 50m free, with a fantastic PB time, two seconds quicker than she has ever swum this event before. This really was a great swim, and would place Becky amongst the top ten in the county of her age in this event. Well done Becky, a fantastic PB.

Now as everyone knows, my favourite event of the programme, the girls 8 x 1 cannon! As always, the girls did not let me down, winning the event by two seconds, well done girls. They were Megan Dudley, Emily Bennett, Emily Sheppard, Beth Hendy, Kate Fletcher, Jess Hickman, Steph Piper and Becky Irwin. Now, we haven’t heard anything from Beth Hendy in a bit, so surely it must be time for another win? Yes, Beth was up next in the tens girls 50m backstroke, and took the six points for the team in her second individual win of the evening.

Emily Bennett gave us the next win of the evening, in her first ever swimming gala! Emily absolutely slaughtered the competition in the girls 9 years 25m freestyle, winning by over two seconds! The girls’ twelve years freestyle relay team showed they are a force to be reckoned with, by beating the competition by two seconds also. They were Emma Rhodes, Steph Piper, Phoebe Facer (in a PB) and Becky Irwin.

Into the last few events now and there was one final win from Stourbridge B again by the twelves girls as named above, who also won their medley relay, well done on doing the double girls!

And so we had come to the end of a very exciting and successful evening. The final scores were:

1st   Northampton ‘B’         232
2nd Stourbridge ‘B’          215
3rd  Wednesbury                158
4th  Solihull ‘B’                  152
5th  Droitwich Dolphins ‘B’ 122
6th  Hinckley ‘B’                114

This was an outstanding result from a team who in April was largely new to the world of swimming galas! Had we been able to compete in all events on the evening (there were three events with no Stourbridge swimmer in at all due to availability issues) and had we not been disqualified in one event we would have won this gala!

The team on the night was:

Girls: Beth Hickman, Emily Bennett, Kay Bennett, Megan Dudley, Hannah Irwin, Beth Hendy, Emily Sheppard, Lauren Evans, Jess Hickman, Kate Fletcher, Emma Rhodes, Becky Irwin, Phoebe Facer and Steph Piper.
Boys: Ryan Sharpe, Tom Warner, Connor Meehan, Jarryd Aston-Baugh, William Rennicks, Luke Shaw, Sam Donaldson, Jack Hartshorne, Jack Whyle, Dan Sheppard, Jake Sawyer and Scott Janes.

This result meant that we scored 5 points for this gala, and with a win and another second place already under our belts, Stourbridge ‘B’ have qualified for the Division 3 Nuneaton Junior League Final! We qualify in 5th place, and the final will be swum on 9th September 2006. Please make sure that your child is available on this date! All parents of swimmers who are to be involved in the final will shortly receive a letter from me. The finals are fantastic events for everyone concerned, and hopefully the swimmers will enjoy it. However, it’s not over yet! We need to finish in the top four teams in this division to gain promotion to division 2 next year, so we have a lot of work to do over the summer swimmers! B team training sessions are set to continue and I expect to see as many of you there as possible. They will continue at the Grange on a Monday 7-8pm until the end of the school term. Then during the school holidays they will move to the Crystal centre on a Friday from 6-7pm.

Hope to see you all there!

Thank you as always to my helpers on the evening, Maria, Toni and Pete on the poolside, and the officials representing Stourbridge, Sian Hickman, Rob Rennicks and Heather Janes. Not forgetting Emma Facer who very kindly helped out on the recorder’s desk. Cheers everyone!

Becky Simkins
B Team Manager
07841 040788

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