Team have eyes on regional title

The team – swimming as Bournemouth Dolphins A – finished 44 points clear of Taunton Deane in their second round gala at Newport with Swindon’s SX3 A team a further 14 points behind.

The result originally put them joint second in the Premier Division table with Millfield with both teams on 12 league and 496 gala points from the first two rounds.

However, Millfield have since had 20 gala points deducted for failing to provide a judge.

National champions Plymouth Leander top the table on gala points (519) but, significantly, will swim the final without 10 of their top swimmers who have been called up for international duty. They include men’s captain Antony James, who will be swimming for Britain at the European Short Course Championships, and eight swimmers selected for the World Schools Games in Doha.

Plymouth coach Jon Rudd said he would be “delighted to come third” at Millfield School on December 12.

“It really makes things difficult for us,” he said. “In Millfield and the Bournemouth-Ferndown team, we are facing two of the strongest teams in the country. It’s not far off being the national final.

“Third would be a great result for us and if we make the national A final I’ll be even more delighted – but I think the B final is more realistic.”

Rudd is even limited in his choice of replacements as most of his second-string swimmers have already swum for Plymouth’s B team and are therefore ineligible.

Bournemouth Dolphins coach Sam Woodward said: “It’s going to be a cracking final. I don’t see us as favourites but I know some people do and that’s a great compliment.”

Thirteen-year-olds Tom Mules and Courtney Rowan provided five of the team’s 22 race wins between them.

In his own 13/u age group, Mules won the 100m freestyle in 58.9 and the 100m butterfly.

He also stepped up to the 15/u 100m butterfly and won that as well in an impressive 59.8.

Rowan won the girls’ 13/u 100m backstroke and freestyle in 1:09.4 and 1:00.73.

Beth Folland and Ross Webb proved a winning double act in the 10-11yrs 50m backstroke (35.7 and 36.8).

In the female breaststroke, Fran Hughes and Naomi Vides respectively won the open and 15/u 100m events in 1:14.1 and 1:13.9.

The men’s events brought victories from Chris Campbell in the 100m butterfly in 57.3 and Martin Littlefair in the 100m freestyle in 51.7.

Other individual winners were 15/u swimmers Jay Olenicz in the 100m backstroke (1:00.4) and Jack Thorpe in the 100m freestyle (55.9) and Todd Price in the 13/u 100m backstroke (1:08.6).

• In the lower reaches of the Premier Division table, the Bournemouth-Ferndown B team – swimming as Ferndown Otters – face a four-team relegation battle on December 12 against Barnstaple (who scored nil points at Bridport after the team bus failed to turn up), Keynsham and Severnside Tritons.

But with Pembrokeshire having withdrawn, only the bottom team will go down – and no-one at all if the full Dolphins-Otters merger goes ahead.

Ferndown assistant coach Emma Hirst said: “This was a much improved performance from round one and the team was more competitive than the result suggests.”

Alan Wong won the 13/u 100m backstroke.

• Poole narrowly avoided a relegation scrap in Division One thanks to their fifth place at Exeter and will instead head for the mid-table gala at Bridport.

Their opponents included former 50m breaststroke world record-holder and 2002 Commonwealth champion Zoe Baker, who won the women’s 100m breaststroke and 100m medley for Street.

Poole’s four wins all came in the 11/u under age group.

Kiran Olenicz won the boys’ 50m backstroke in 38.78 and Maddison Kemp the 50m butterfly in 36.0.

The 11/u boys’ team of Olenicz, Harrison Moore, Harrison Kemp and Jacob Lambourne won their medley and freestyle relays.

• Table-topping Christchurch and New Milton Seagulls and the combined Bournemouth-Ferndown C team will be facing each other as well as four other opponents in the battle for the two promotion places from Division Two.