Pink Army Dominant in Major League Round 2
On Saturday night the Pink Army returned to Stevenage for Round 2 of Major League. Could we make it two wins in a row? Our competitors on the night were Verulam, Ware, Watford, Stevenage and Cheshunt. We definitely had the best supporters with pink shirts dotting the gallery and our youngest swimmers very vocal with their cheering.
Tasked with getting us off to a good start in the first race of the night was Katie Jeffrey in the Girls 100m IM. She took the win and we didn’t look back! A string of first and second place finishes followed and the points started adding up.
The swimmers really pulled together for the team. We were short a couple of senior swimmers on the night so those who were there did events not usual for them. Lucas Hartley swam backstroke for the first time in years and Daniel Belsey attempted sprinting. Mercy Adeoye stepped up to the open age group in the 100m breaststroke as well as swimming the same event in her own age group and the 100m fly. Nieve Ives also raced backstroke and Katie Jeffrey swam the 100m fly, confirming to everyone afterwards that she won’t be repeating the feat!
The relays at Major League are a lot of fun. Not only are there breaststroke and butterfly relays, there are also mixed age group relays. This is a fantastic opportunity for the youngest swimmers to team up with the senior swimmers. In the butterfly relay, Rufus Kellie, Jorgie Bhasvi, Peresa Yau and Daniel Williams fought a close battle, taking the win with ‘flying’ last leg from Daniel. The breaststroke relay of Niccolo Camilloti, Nieve Ives, Selena Spaho and Lucas Hartley had a similar theme and was also victorious.
As usual at these competitions, the final event of the night was the squadron relay where one boy and one girl from each age group team up to race the other clubs. It is always very exciting with the lead constantly changing depending on the tactics of each team and the position each swimmer swims in. The volume of cheering is deafening as everyone wants to win this race. K-ets Yah Khai led off for the Pink Army and we handed over to Mercy just ahead of the rest. Tommy Fenwick kept us ahead as we swam some of our older swimmers first. Next came strong swims from Catherine Hatherly and Julien Vannier, our youngest relay members. Other teams used some of their older swimmers here and Verulam took the lead. Nieve kept us in touch before our two seniors took to the water. Katie made gains on Verulam and got us back to within 5 seconds of them but they had now swum all their boys. This left Lucas to anchor the relay and chase down Verulam’s last girl. With everyone cheering loudly in excitement, we regained the lead at the turn and finished victorious! This meant we had won every relay on the night and well as the second round! Well done to all the swimmers, parents, coaches and TMs so far. Hatfield will go into the final round in first place but Potter’s Bar are just behind us. It’ll take a win on the night for us to reclaim the championship. Let’s go Pink Army!
