Kelly Swimming

Devon County Sprint Meet

20th March, 2004

The younger members of the Kelly College Swimming team competed in the Devon County 50m Sprint meet and came away with a fine haul of medals and trophies last weekend.

Only three girls entered the competition and all three were in the 12 year age group. Laura Sprague added to her medals from the main Championship events by winning gold in the butterfly, breaststroke and freestyle and, with her bronze medal from the backstroke, she claimed the overall BAGCATS trophy for her age. Fellow team mate Amy Bayliss, who unfortunately missed most of the main competition with a broken finger, swam the four races with a splint and bandage on her damaged hand but this didn’t stop her from winning the silver medal in the freestyle, bronze in the breaststroke and finishing 4^th and 9^th in the backstroke and butterfly respectively. These results were enough to place her in second overall position. The third girl entrant, Victoria Dewar-Fowler, finished in the top ten in all of her races.

In the boy’s competition, the school entered competitors in all of the age groups and between them they won 8 gold, 4 silver and 6 bronze medals. Three of the boys also won their overall title for their respective ages: Michael Wallis (12 years), Joshua Lake (13 years) and Daniel Kidwell (14 years) with Lawrence Oxborough taking second place in the 11 year age group and Benjamin Clarke finishing third in the 12 years.

Kelly College Preparatory school provided the swimmers in the two youngest age groups as Christopher Swash and Mark Brend contested the 9 and 10 years events respectively where both boys finished in the top 10 ending up 9^th and 8^th overall.

In the freestyle event for boys, the 13 years gold and silver positions were separated by a mere one hundredth of a second between Kelly swimmers Joshua Lake and Ben Clarke with Joshua just edging out Ben for the gold.

The medal tally for the team:

Girls: Laura Sprague – 3 gold and 1 bronze, Amy Bayliss – 1 silver and 1 bronze

Boys: Lawrence Oxborough – 1 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze, Michael Wallis – 2 gold and 1 silver, Liam Yeo – 1 bronze, Joshua Lake - 3 gold and 1 bronze, Ben Clarke – 1 silver and 1 bronze, Philip Channon - 1 silver and 1 bronze, Daniel Kidwell – 2 gold and 1 bronze.