Kendal’s Swim Team took a trip outside the County in order to widen their experience by competing in the North Lancs League Gala held at Blackpool recently.

The Gala involved both Individual and Relay events at all strokes for age groups boys and girls 12 and under, 14 and under plus Open. All of which proved to be a great opportunity to challenge the big guns from Blackburn, Fleetwood, Blackpool, Preston, Leyland, Carnforth and Chorley. Inevitably top points were hard to come by but never the less Kendal’s swimmers gave their best and despite swimming up an age group they all gave performances to be proud of and a majority of them produced Personal Best swims.

Off to a steady start the mixed medley squad combined brilliantly and came through with some excellent takeovers and timed their finish with precision.

Stepping up to the Two Length Freestyle Jake Smith turned on the power and mixed it with the leading group. A superb turn and transition took him into the final length and drawing on all his reserves he powered his way through the pressure zone to hit the finish in a well earned 4th place.

Fine efforts from Lianne Rairata and Jarno Stander at Butterfly helped the team to add to it’s points total and this was followed by superb efforts from the girls 4 x 2 Length Medley team. Emma Duxbury took it on and led them out with a stunning Backstroke P.B. followed by a highly confident Lara Smith putting on the pressure at Breaststroke.

At Butterfly Annie Bottomley gave a terrific display, full of confidence and showing lots of controlled aggression she came through to hand over to anchor Kayleigh Craggs, who with a further injection of pace held off her challengers and stormed into 4th place.

The Open 2 Length Backstroke brought out more dazzling swims from Molly Moran and Adam Stansfield. Both have outstanding stroke patterns and both got better and better as each race progressed.

The opposition was fierce however and they both had a lot of pressure on them, but using all their experience and know how Moran took a 4th place and Stansfield an impressive 5th place. As usual James Escolme gave an outstanding performance in the Two Length Butterfly.

The relentless pace saw him shoulder to shoulder amongst the leaders and quickly finding his rhythm he challenged for honours. An immaculate turn and transition got him into the charge for the finish where he stormed through into 4th place. He then joined Chloe Westmorland in the Open Two Length Breaststroke where both of them showed controlled aggression coupled with loads of natural talent.

Over the first length Escolme placed himself in a position to bid for success.

A brilliant turn had him drawing on every ounce of his reserves for the last length in which he burst through into 3rd place in a perfect finish.

Westmorland produced a valiant effort to snatch a well planned 5th place and the team finished with the Mixed 6x2 Length Cannon where Stansfield, Craggs and Stander linked up with Leo Murray, Kara Van Der Merwe and Isabella Wall-Budden to take the Club into a final 8th place with 117.5 points.