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HH

Essex league Round 2 (Division 3) - 8th Jan 05

Mighty Harlow Penguins improved significantly from Round 1 back in October 2004 where we came in 4th place (out of four teams). Tonight a strengthened team, including Club Captains Kate Burley and Karl Batorski, saw us improve our points haul from 193 in Round 1 to 233 points tonight in Round 2 and secure second place overall.

Swimming at Fullwell Cross (Barkingside) the night started off with a minutes silence for Canvey island Coach, Mercel, who passed away during the Christmas holiday period.  Few if any of our swimmers will know this lady but she was involved with swimming for the last 30 years and instrumental to the Junior Speedo league which we compete in every year. We have written to Canvey Island offering our condolences and wishing to partake in any benefit gala that might take place. I knew Mercel quite well  and it is sad that she has gone.

Our first win of many was secured by Mark St Clare when he won the 50m Open fly in an impressive time of 29.02. This was followed by Phil "10 holidays a year" Noone who just back from skiing won the 100m breaststroke in the boys u15 race. Holly Sims and Luke Marioni both won the u11 50m free races respectively with Luke in an impressive time of 34.35 which may be a club record (to be confirmed). We also believe this may have been Holly's first outright individual win for the club!! Well done Holly.

Jenna Batorski continued her impressive display in the water by winning the u13 50m breaststroke race in a time of 41.91. She would have followed this up with a second outright win in the 50m free but lack of concentration allowed the Killerwhales swimmer to touch her into second place.

John Reynolds & Ryan Wolfe with Chris Stevens and Luke Marioni were too strong for the other teams under 11 relay squads when they won the 4x 25 medley relay in a time of 1.19:25. They came a close second in the freestyle relay race earlier in the evening. This is a frighteningly good foursome that is even better when Senner Koskocan is shoe horned into the team.

Kaz Melvin (13) carried on showing her awesome talent by easily winning the 100m Open breaststroke against other girls 3+ years senior than her. Alex Francey, who was a late replacement on Friday night, had a successful evening winning the boys u13 50m freestyle race in a great time of 30.79. Alex reliably informs me that he now beats sister Eleanor who used to swim for Harlow Penguins and was a Southern counties champion!!

Chris "shorty" Stevens is an excellent backstroker. Every gala he is told to go out and get first place and tonight he did this for the umpteen time. Very strong in the water Chris used his height and excellent technique to secure the u11 50m backstroke race in a time of 38.97. We have an extremely talented and strong squad of u11 boys - if they keep swimming as their main sport the future looks very rosy.

Club Captains Kate and Karl both easily won the 100m freestyle races in the Open age group. Karl missed the club record but in a time of 54.14 still beat his nearest rival by a clear 6 seconds. Kate won her race in 1.02:85

Track star Jodie Want underlined why she is a great swimmer too by winning the girls u15 100m backstroke race  in what must surely by a personal best time of  1.16:41. Not to be undone Craig Warwick won the boys equivalent race in a time of 1.15:36.

The talented Senner Koskocan aged just 9 years won the u11 50m breaststroke race in a time of 42.92 and came second in the u13 50m breaststroke race (43.12). Senner is one of our future stars that I love watching.

Our final win of the evening was secured by Kaz Melvin, Louise Kendall, Holly Want and Kate Burley who won the 4x 50m freestyle race in a time of 2.04:71. Special mention to Holly  who fought off the close challenger from Borough of Waltham Forest so that Kate dived and finished in first place .

Club Coach Alan Mitchell was extremely pleased with our points total of 233 being some 36 better than that secured in October. We achieved 15 1sts, 18 2nds, 8 3rd and 7 4ths and one DQ (not saying here that Michael Haagensen was disqualified for climbing out of the pool before the officials had invited him too!!).

Final places: - Killerwhales 250 points, Harlow Penguins 233 points, Waltham Forest 193 points, Harwich 193 points.

special thanks to Alan Mitchell (Club Coach), Hayley (most loveliest timekeeper ever!), Dean (Splits), Eric (starter) and Carol (team coach). Also to our noisy cheerleaders - Emily, Ruby, Becky and Cyd