Due to holiday commitments a rather depleted Sid Vale Sharks team represented the club at the Pyramids in Exeter on Saturday in the first round of the 2013 East Devon mini league against, Newton Abbot, Torquay, Exeter and Exmouth, writes John Beglin.

As we could not field a team in all the relay events this effectively ruled out any chance we had of winning the overall competition.

However, the swimmers that did represent the club put up some great performances in both the individual and relay events with lots of swimmers recording personal best times.

Victories in individual events were achieved by James Byron; in the boys 12 and under 50m Backstroke and 50m freestyle; Victoria Wyant in the girls 14u 50m backstroke and Aimee Keast in the girls 12u 50m backstroke. Keast also finished second in the 12u 50m freestyle.

The girls 12 and under relay team consisting of Hannah Rudgard, Flora Hastie, Aimee Keast and Connie Harris also triumphed in 4 x 50m medley relay and the 4 by 50m freestyle relay.

In other relay events the boys 14 and under team comprising Thomas Davy, Jack Simmons, Matthew Domhof and Michael Overton finished second in both the 4 by 50m medley relay and the 4 by 50m freestyle relay.

Jack Simmons recorded second place finishes in both the boys 14u 50m butterfly and 50m breaststroke. He also finished third in the boys 16u breaststroke despite swimming outside of his age group.

Hannah Rudgard finished second in the girls 12u 50m breaststroke and third in the butterfly. Other individual performances of note included third place finishes for Millie Jarrett in the girls 10 and under butterfly, Darcy Hastie in the girls 10u breaststroke and Abbi Harris in the girls 10u freestyle. Michael Overton also finished third despite swimming outside his age category in the boys 16 and under freestyle a position replicated by Hannah Domhof in the girls 16u 100m individual medley

In the final event of the night the 8 by 50m freestyle cannon relay produced a very close finish with Sid Vale anchor leg swimmer Hannah Domhof just pipped into second place by the captain of Exmouth in a photo finish. Exmouth were the overall winners on the night.

The next round of the mini league takes place at the Riverside on May 11, and hopefully with a stronger team we can get the better of local rivals Exmouth.