The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
The South Lincs Competitive Swimming Club squad achieved 17 individual finals and collected a further four medals at the East Midland Regional Championships.
One of the highlights of the weekend was the South Lincs quartet of Emma Croker, Aurinija Maliauskaite, Ellisha Cookson and Daisy Rummery in their relay events.
The girls produced a strong 4 x 100 Medley Relay performance to take fifth place in a time of 4.38.52mins.
However their achievement in the 4 x 100 freestyle relay was immense.
In an exciting and closely-fought race the quartet managed to defeat some of the region’s biggest clubs to win the silver medal.
The girls also managed to improve their entry time by three seconds to post a strong 4.05.41mins to much excitement and celebration.
The time posted by the girls was enough to place them in the top 30 teams in the country and assure them of qualification to British Summer Championships, where they will contest the relay event at Tollcross (Glasgow) on a national stage.
Croker produced some excellent performances over the course of the weekend.
In the 100 freestyle she posted an extremely strong heat swim of 59.17secs in qualifying for the girls’ 14 years age group final.
Croker rose to the occasion with a magnificent swim, coming home strongly in the final 50m to take the silver medal in a further personal best time of 58.73secs to set a new Lincolnshire County record for the 100 freestyle.
In the 200m freestyle, Croker put in yet another fine performance to take the bronze medal in the final of this event in a long course personal best time of 2.11.75mins.
She also contested the final of the 100m fly where, true to form, she set a further long course PB with a time of 1.08.20mins to take sixth place.
Cookson then produced a host of excellent swims, setting new personal best (PB) times in the 200m IM and 200m fly with heat times of 2.27.70mins and 2.30.78mins respectively and qualifying to the finals of both these events in the girls’ 15 years age group.
She went on to place fifth in the 200m IM and fourth in the 200m fly.
However, Cookson saved her best performance for her final event. Setting a new long course PB in the heats of the 100m breaststroke with a time of 1.17.94mins, she moved through to the finals, where a controlled opening 50m saw Cookson turn back in seventh place.
Showing incredible back end speed and closing out the race faster than ever before, she moved through the field to snatch the silver medal in a further improvement on her heat time to touch home in 1.17.48mins.
Rummery also produced excellent swims over the course of the weekend.
SQUAD GOALS: The South Lincs team are pictured at the regional championships.
She set a significant new personal best in the 400m freestyle, dropping her PB by seven seconds to post a strong 4.42.84mins.
There was a new PB in the 100m backstroke heats of 1.12.52mins for Rummery, who went on to take tenth place in the girls’ 15 years age group final. She also made two further finals, following terrific heat swims in the 200m freestyle and 200m backstroke where she posted times of 2.15.51mins and 2.33.28mins respectively.
Rummery placed tenth in the freestyle final and sixth in the backstroke final.
Maliauskaite, meanwhile, was a multiple finalist over the weekend.
A strong heat swim in the 200m IM in which she set a new long course PB of 2.33.24mins, saw her qualify to the final of this event where she went on to place ninth.
In the 100m freestyle Maliauskaite set another long course PB in the heats to make the girls’ 15 years age group final where she went on to lower her heat time by 0.80secs in setting a new best time of 1.01.88mins to take seventh place.
Her final event was the 200m freestyle and her heat swim of 2.16.39mins saw her qualify to her third final of the weekend.
Straight from her relay success Maliauskaite swam a slightly slower time in the final to place ninth.
Elsewhere, Atticus Strickland was a double finalist over the course of the weekend.
He qualified through to the 200m backstroke and 200m fly finals in the boys’ 16 years age group – and managed to improve on his heat time swims in both of these finals.
In the 200m backstroke he posted a final time of 2.30.72 mins to take tenth place and in the 200m fly he posted a time of 2.32.53mins to take seventh place.
Mollie Briggs was a double finalist over the weekend, too. She made the final of the girls’ 14/15 years age group 400m freestyle final following an excellent heat swim of 4.40.38mins.
Briggs followed this up with an outstanding 200m fly, where she smashed three seconds off her PB time to finish in 2.35.34mins to qualify through to the final of the girls’ 14 years age group.
Mollie was slightly slower in both her heat swims, but still turned in solid performances. In the 400m freestyle she placed eighth and in the 200m fly she placed seventh.
Joe Lund also made his first Regional Championship final in the boys’ 15 years age group 200m breaststroke.
A strong heat swim saw Joe post his fastest ever time in the event stopping the clock in a new PB of 2.47.62mins. In the final, Lund was just fractionally outside this performance and took ninth place.
All of the boys competing managed new PB times in the heats of the 400m IM.
Lund also shaved a second off his PB to finish in 5.18.43mins, while Strickland lowered his personal best by eight seconds as he swam to a new long course best of 5.05.86mins. Luke Blanchard also reduced his PB by 12 seconds as he swam to a new long course best time of 5.02.76mins.
Esther Skells, competing at her first regional championships, posted two strong swims.
Contesting both the 400m freestyle and the 200m fly, she swept to PB times in both events, really rising to the occasion.
Skells lowered her 400m freestyle time by three seconds to post a best time of 4.49.36mins and took two seconds off her 200m Fly time to finish in a strong 2.41.19mins.
South Lincs head coach Keith Haynes said: “The swimmers have really stepped up to the mark over the course of regional championships.
“They have produced some very significant new personal best times and have gained valuable experience in swimming heats and finals.
“We are all delighted with the results and to have picked up medals at regional level has been a real bonus. The swimmers are now going back into some tough training as they begin preparations for National Championships.”
