The final round of the Peanuts League saw Hemel Hempstead’s swimmers having to dig deep, with a number of key players unavailable due to injury and illness. The Blue Team, competing at the top of Division One, pulled out all the stops to finish off a particularly strong season in style.
They managed a total of 38 PBs – a fantastic achievement following on from the previous round only a month before.
Topping the PB chart were Paige Wilding and Josh Coulson. Wilding scored a personal record in the u13 backstroke, the breaststroke leg of the medley relay, the individual freestyle, swimming faster again in the freestyle relay. Coulson took PBs in the individual butterfly, the ‘fly leg of the medley relay, and the 50m freestyle and the 25m freestyle relay legs.
A number of swimmers put themselves on the personal record books three times over. These included all four u11 boys – Josh Gaines, Ben Garratt, Joe Prior and Thushira Kumarage. They all PB’d in one race, the freestyle relay, finishing third and went on to win the medley relay.
Lewis Beardsworth (u13) and Samuel Hutchings (9) were two other swimmers to score three PBs apiece.
The team missed coming second in the gala by just one point but succeeded in finishing second overall in the league, proving they are amongst the top junior swimmers in the County.
The Red Team faced similar challenges in Division Two with a number of missing swimmers.
The under 13 girls were on strong form. Gabrielle Cole, Rachel Chesterton, Isabella Sherwani and Lucy Hutchins came second in the freestyle relay and third in the medley. Sherwani, Chesterton and Hutchins also scored third places in their individual freestyle, backstroke and butterfly races respectively.
Another swimmer to make the top three in his individual race was Joseph Phillips in the under 13 freestyle. He was joined by Jonty Bier-Allen, Carl Prince and Conor Parker to finish third in the medley relay.
The team finished sixth on the night and a commendable fifth overall in Division Two.
In Borehamwood Hemel’s White Team worked hard to finish seventh in their final gala of the season and seventh overall in Division Three competing against many other clubs’ first teams.