TEAMS from Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch are all in the top eight in the country after reaching finals in the English Schools Swimming Association Relay Championships at Crystal Palace.

Bournemouth School for Girls made the finals of both their events but Parkstone Grammar School achieved the highest placing with fifth in the junior girls’ 4x50m medley.

The quartet of Sacha Rines (backstroke), Izzy Pryce (breaststroke), Jess Ritchens (butterfly) and Megan Leaper (freestyle) arrived at the National Sports Centre ranked ninth in the medley, needing to improve by one place to make the final.

They went three places better in the heats, coming sixth in a long-course time of 2:14.50.

Despite recording a slower time of 2:15.22, they improved to fifth in the final out of an original entry of more than 200 teams.

They were also 13th in the freestyle in 2:02.59, two places behind Talbot Heath’s Harriet Perfect, Ellie Burrage, Emmeline Ansell and Leonie Wiehle, who improved one place on their ranking as they finished 11th.

The Bournemouth School for Girls team of Lucy Brain, Katy Hebditch, Bethan O’Hara and Jasmine Holmes matched their pre-finals ranking with sixth place in the intermediate girls’ 4x50m freestyle in 1:57.02 (heat 1:56.62).

Then in the medley, they im-proved from a ranking of ninth to seventh in both the heat and final in 2:11.65 and 2:10.94. The girls train with three different clubs – Brain (back) and Hebditch (breast) with Swim Bourne-mouth, O’Hara (fly) with Seagulls and Holmes (free) with Poole.

Twynham School’s Spencer Wilks, Ben Wickens, Jack Simpkins and James Stephenson qualified seventh quickest for the intermediate boys’ freestyle final and also finished seventh in 1:47.95 (heat 1:46.82). The same quartet missed out on the medley final by just 0.09sec after coming ninth in the heats in 2:02.05.

Bournemouth Collegiate School’s Jack Arnell, Max Rutherford, Christian Tai and Fin Trehane came 11th in the junior boys’ medley in 2:13.95 and 15th in the freestyle in 2:02.63.

Poole Grammar School’s Jacob Peters, Matthew Cochrane, Raf Packham and Lewis Harding were one place behind in the junior freestyle as they came 16th in 2:03.48.

Dorchester’s Thomas Hardye School came ninth in the senior girls’ medley in 2:14.46 and 12th in the freestyle (2:00.19).

Meanwhile, Poole swimmer Dan Speers went home with a brace of gold medals as a member of the Millfield School teams that won the senior boys’ medley and freestyle relays.

His team-mates included 2013 world championship finalist and European junior champion James Guy, though even he was not the biggest name at the Palace, as Plymouth College included Lithuania’s 16-year-old Olympic and world champion Ruta Meilutyte in their team for the second year running.

  •  Swim Bournemouth’s Ellie Kerslake struck gold in the 100 and 200m backstroke in the Hampshire Schools Gala at Havant and Waterlooville.

Team-mate Danielle Thwaites won silver in the 100 and 200m butterfly while Charlotte Kerslake took bronze in the 200m backstroke.

All three were representing Arnewood School at New Milton.

PARKSTONE GS: Parkstone Grammar School’s (l-r) Sacha Rines, Jess Ritchens, Megan Leaper and Izzy Pryce came fifth in the junior medley