Our second monthly club night was certainly not lacking in excitement. We had one of our biggest showings in terms of swimmers; and it certainly did lead to some interesting competition.

After the group descended onto the pool grounds, we carefully divided into our green and blue teams. With Brendan taking the captain’s role of the Green team, and John O taking the Blue team, we looked to have a good event ahead of us.

Forty swimmers lined up for the freestyle events, a huge increase on the twenty-two that started just one month earlier. We had quite a few personal best performances in the freestyle heats. Bazza Horrey, Jack Ayoub, and Ryan Farrelly eclipsed the 40-second barrier for the first time. All an indication of the efforts put in the pool during training sessions. Other notable swims were by Johnathon Henderson, taking nearly 8 seconds off of his previous best. Also, Nicholas Gannon’s first ever sub 50-second performance and Anthony Romeo’s first minute breaking swim were both great to watch. After the freestyle events, Brendan’s Green team had a one-point lead, 44-43.

Our swimmers next took to the breaststroke events. The Green team extended its superiority by outscoring John O’s non-breaststrokers 41 to 28. The Green’s dominance in breast was lead by Joshua Scott’s standout swim, exactly 7 seconds faster than his nearest finisher. Great swims turned in by Virginia Black, Daryl Bleasdale, and Cristie Walsh spearheaded the adult participation.

John O’s Blue team was feeling the pressure half way through the meet and needed some stellar swims to turn the tables of the 85 to 71 advantage held by the Green’s. Taylor Hambly turned in a great time topping the backstrokers ending Joshua’s so far clean sweep at the top of each event’s table. With a 28-20 win in the backstroke events, John could not have been happier with his team’s result. A backstroker himself, he prided his groups abilities. It still looked a bit ominous heading into the butterfly 6 points behind.

What ensued next was a demonstration of will yet unseen at our club events. It seemed the Blue team was not happy to let the Green take home the honours. After fighting to take home the win in October in the last relay, the Blue team wanted to extend its dominance; and the butterfly events proved a treat. A 31 to 18 outscoring spurred by the Blue butterflyers put them into a lead that would force the Green team to take first and second place in the relay event to secure a victory.

Even with a convincing first place finish in the relay, the Green team could not secure enough points to overcome the deficit from the butterfly. The Blue team taking second and third cemented their second victory in as many months; setting a challenge to the upcoming club nights. Green, can you step up and beat blue?

Final Score Blue 140 and Green 134. Lets see what happens on 16th December.