Salisbury Stingrays

Salisbury Stringrays had six swimmers competing at the South West Regional Short Course  Championships, which were held at Millfield School. Swam in a 25 meter pool, the two-day event, held from the 3^rd to the 4^th of December attracted the very best of the South West region.

Rob Langan, Ellie Wolverson, Ginnie Baker, Louise Davidson, Jenny Wiltshire and Phil Muspratt were in action over the weekend, taking part in various events, all coming away with great performances and several personal best times. Adam Davidson was due to compete but unfortunately had to pull out through injury.

The level of competition was fierce to say the least, especially when considering the likes of Plymouth Leander were attending the event. Leander are one of the most dominating teams in the country, let alone in the region and stats from the 1^st morning session of weekend, back that statement to he hills. From the morning session of the 3^rd of December, 7 finals were swam, each consisting of 8 swimmers. Of the 56 swimmers who made the 7 finals that morning, 26 (46%) were from Plymouth Leander. Of the 21 medals available, 14 (67%) were won by Plymouth Leander swimmers, with 6 of the 7 gold medals up for grabs going to the team from Devon, who boast swimmers who have represented their county at junior, youth and senior level.

Phil Muspratt reached two championship finals, the 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle, despite being ill in the week leading up to the event.

In the 50m freestyle Phil recorded a new personal best time of 23.21 seconds, his fastest time since before the full body suits were banned. He finished in second place behind Antony James and ahead of James Young in 3rd and Aaron Rickhuss in 4^th position.

In the 100m final Phil produced another PB performance in a time of 51.33 seconds. Phil finished in a creditable 5^th place, 1 100^th of a second off 4^th place and only Plymouth Leander swimmers ahead of him. James Young took gold on this occasion, with Antony James in second place. Joseph Patching took 3^rd place, Steven Beckerleg taking 4^th place and Aaron Rickhuss finished in 6^th place.

Salisbury Stingrays travelled to Millfield School in Street, Somerset to compete in the Division 1 ‘A’ final. Having been promoted to Division 1 due to a league restructure, Salisbury had already surpassed expectations by qualifying for the ‘A’ final. Having finished in the top half of the 18 team division, Salisbury went into the final, held at the 8 lane 50m long course pool at Millfield, ranked in 8^th place.

As they had done in previous rounds leading to the final, Salisbury Stingrays excelled to finish in 6^th place overall, two places better than their ranking going into the event. All the participating swimmers played their part in the Stingrays great performance and put up a fantastic fight for the cause.

Salisbury did claim a trio of wins at the highly competitive event, where promotion would see the winning team pitted against the likes of Millfield & Plymouth Leander in the Premier Division.

Those wins came courtesy of two of Salisbury’s current & future breastroking stars; Luke Demetri and Sidney Fenwick. Luke claimed his win in the boys 13 & under 50m breastroke and in the same discipline Sidney swept to his win in the boys 11 & under age group, as both boys produced top draw swims to win their respective races.

Also to gain a win was Phil Muspratt in the mens open age group 100m freestyle.

Salisbury finished just four points off 5^th position overall, with three disqualifications proving costly. Despite this, the shine wasn’t to be taken off their evening, after such a brilliant team performance. Huge credit also goes to Salisbury Stingrays coach Eric Henderson, who’s been with the club just over a year & played a massive part behind the clubs evident progression.