Teams swimming
Wey Valley, Andover, Chichester, Maidenhead, Basingstoke and Romsey & Totton
Wey Valley Finish Year with a Rare National League Victory
Wey Valley went into the final round of this year's National League galas lying mid-table in a good
position to improve on last year's highest ever league place of 9th. The competition was strong though
with five strong clubs coming to the Guildford Spectrum, all determined to finish the year on a high note.
Wey Valley's senior squad coach Jon Brayne was at least able to field close to his strongest team having
been without 13 swimmers in round two. But having only ever won one National League gala before in the past
and with such strong opposition, the best that he was hoping for was a top three finish.
Wey Valley is a club that prides itself on strong squad performances in the relays and once again it was to be
the relays that got the team it's first wins of the night as the boys 11 and under 50m freestyle team of
Davis Taylor, Oliver Taylor-Rose, Callum Black and Mark Tuddenham came home comfortably in first place. Wey Valley
then won the next three relays thanks to the girls and boys 13&U medley relay teams consisting of Megan Flaherty,
Rhiannon Michael, Nancy Shaw and Liz Bell, and for the boys Tom Kearsey, Josh Taylor-Rose, Luke Edwards and
Alex Tanner plus the girls 15&U freestyle relay team of Sam Tuddenham, Chloe Edwards, Catroina Groom and Lara Davison.
The relay teams had taken Wey Valley into an early lead that, despite challenges throughout the night from
Chichester, Basingstoke and Maidenhead, they were never going to let go of.
Although Wey Valley then had to wait until race 21 for another victory they secured many second and third
places which were crucial to their victory at the end of the evening. In race 21 it was Nancy Shaw who won the
girls 13&U 100m backstroke in a time of 1:18.37, some 7 seconds ahead of second place. In the same discipline
Tom Kearsey followed Nancy into the water and also won comfortably and by doing so increased Wey Valley's
lead to 10 points over second placed Chichester.
Further individual first places followed from Emily Whall (13&U 100m Butterfly), Callum Black (11&U 50m
Freestyle), Maddy De Forest-Brown (11&U 50m Freestyle) and Catroina Groom (15&U 100m Breaststroke). By the
time that the last set of relays started Wey Valley were 27 points ahead of the chasing pack and were not going
to be caught.
The girls 15&U relay team of Sam Tuddenham, Chloe Edwards, Catroina Groom and Lara Davison got their second
victory of the night, this time in the 4 x 50m Medley relay and then the ladies open relay team consisting of
Sam Tuddenham, Francine Cheese, Liz Molter, Hillary Rusholme, Kate Steele and Rachel Cawthorn rounded off the
night with a very exciting victory in the 6 x 50m freestyle relay. When coach turned swimmer for the night
Kate Steele took to the water on the second to last leg she was two lengths down in third place. Kate closed
the gap to lie in joint second place and Rachel Cawthorn powered through the field to win by a clear body
length within the space of two lengths of the pool.
Victory was confirmed with Wey Valley on 204 points well clear of Basingstoke (177) who had overtaken Maidenhead
(172) during the final relays and Chichester (171) with Andover beating Romsey and Totton into last place on the
night.
As the result was confirmed over the tannoy the Wey Valley tradition of dumping the coach into the pool was
upheld and Jon Brayne was happy to take his dunking from the swimmers. Afterwards a delighted Jon commented
"These swimmers really deserve this win, as always the 15 and under age groups have been fantastic and it
just shows what we can do when we get all of our strongest swimmers together. The relay swimmers were fantastic
tonight and all of those hard earned points from 2nd, 3rd and 4th places were just as important as the 1st
places in ensuring that we won."
The victory left Wey Valley in an all time high position of 7th in the table, continuing the club's year on
year improvement in the National League.
Chris Michael
