Nicola Scott and Fran Hughes

FERNDOWN Otters-coached Nicole Scott and Fran Hughes have become England schools champions as Dorset swimmers achieved their best-ever set of results at the England Schools Swimming Association finals.

Two others from the area, Ferndown's Craig Freeman and Bournemouth Dolphins' Chris Campbell, came close to making it four wins for Dorset in Manchester.

In all, no less than nine Dorset swimmers made individual finals while a 10th, Ferndown's Cathy Close, missed out on the top eight by one place and half-a-second.

Wimborne's Queen Elizabeth's School alone provided three of the finalists.

Scott and Hughes, two of the winners in Dorset's promotion-winning performance in the national inter-county competition at Sheffield a week earlier, were again in the form of their lives.

Scott, 16, silver medallists in the intermediate girls' 100m butterfly last year, went one better as she stepped up to the senior competition.

The QE sixth-former lopped almost a second off her personal best as she recorded a sparkling short course time of 1:03.33 - her first time under 64 seconds.

Runner-up Jade Barclay from Millfield clocked 1:04.25.

Scott, who will now be invited for the second year running to represent England schools in next year's international against the other home nations, said: "I'm really pleased as this is my first national title and I won it with a very good time. I've been training hard and obviously doing something right."

Scott and fellow Otter Emily Freeman also made up 50 per cent of the Division 12 regional team that came third in the senior girls' medley and freestyle relays.

Fran Hughes, 13, finished 1.4 seconds ahead of nearest rival Lucy Spence from Sheffield to win the junior girls' 100m breaststroke in an impressive time of 1:14.87, an improvement of 0.22sec on her heat swim.

Craig Freeman missed a gold medal by 0.08sec as he took silver in the junior boys' 100m freestyle in 56.41.

It took a competition record to prevent Chris Campbell from securing yet another national title in Manchester.

Fourth places went to Ferndown's Lydia McManus in the intermediate girls' 100m butterfly in 1:05.92 and Rebecca Cottrell, from Dorchester, in the same age group's 100m breaststroke (1:14.71).

Emily Freeman was sixth in the senior 100m freestyle (59.39), fellow Otter Zoe Watson eighth in the junior 100m freestyle (1:02.99) and Bournemouth Dolphins' Martin Littlefair eighth in the junior boys' 100m breaststroke (1:18.81, heat 1:18.00).

Cathy Close came ninth in the intermediate girls' 100m backstroke (1:09.07).

THE OLD ONE-TWO!

NINE-year-olds Peter Griffiths and Peter Lawson provided a one-two for Christchurch and New Milton Seagulls at the Rushmoor Royals Open Meet in the 50m army pool at Aldershot.

Griffiths finished 19 seconds ahead for his gold in the 9yrs 400m individual medley (7:04.02) with Lawson taking the silver in 7:23.87.

Griffiths also claimed two bronze medals, placing third in the 200m freestyle in 2:47.83 and 200m medley (3:20.96).

His freestyle time also qualified him for his first South Western age group championships.

12:12pm Thursday 2nd November 2006

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