Meet Report - Barnsley Minor League Round 2
Back in March our club squad made its first forays into the Barnsley Minor League, the opening fixture seeing us finish comfortably second, some 22 points behind winners Edlington. Lots of lessons were learnt by coaches and swimmers alike ahead of our return to action at our home pool last Sunday.
On one of the hottest days of year (as I’m sure those sat on the balcony will confirm) and in front of a packed and very noisy (in a good way!) balcony, DARTES hosted its first BML meet at Rossington leisure centre. Not just a first for the swimmers, but a first for those organising the event. I’d like to start by thanking everybody who contributed to making this happen, the officials, scorers, door attendants, team managers, coaches, the DCLT staff at Rossington and anybody else who I might have forgotten. It was a great team effort, one which is hugely appreciated by the club, the committee and of course our swimmers.
In the pool things were different this time around, with DARTES victorious in 24 of the 49 events. Another notable improvement saw our DQ tally reduced from 5 to 3 whilst we were also able to field a full squad meaning the 3 ‘DNS’ (did not start) from last time around were rectified. All of this makes a huge difference.
We found ourselves leading at the halfway stage, but only by 3 points. This lead was increased in the 2nd half of the gala and as the final events approached, we were 6 points ahead of Edlington. Surely, we couldn’t throw that away……. Well, we certainly gave it a good go! 2 consecutive DQ’s in the 3rd and 2nd to last events meant that going into the cannon we found ourselves 1 point behind Edington to setup up a winner takes all final event……. Thankfully our swimmers were good enough to get us over the line by taking a fantastic win in the cannon to secure victory in the fixture by just 1 point! Swimmers, please do not feel the need to create such a grandstand finish in the future!! 1 point isn't much you might say, but that is a 23 points swing from only a few months ago.
The final standings were
- Doncaster DARTES 114
- Edlington 113
- Knottingley 61
As always, there were far too many excellent swims to name them all however my personnel highlight of the gala was seeing Jessica Moore (12), swimming up in the 4 x 50m girls open free relay and more then holding her own on the 3rd leg against much older and more established county and regional standard swimmers with a speedy 30.6 split.
It was also encouraging to see more of our older swimmers getting involved this time around which was reflected on the score card with our open swimmers being far more competitive then in round 1. More of this next time please, its good fun isn’t it!
It was great to see so many swimmers, parents and volunteers enjoying the fantastic atmosphere that these events generate on pool side – I know for some of the children (and perhaps adults) this was a bit of an eye opener. We hope to be able to turn our home galas into events to be looked forward to and certainly as a bit of change to those long sessions at open meets.
The 3rd and final fixture will take place in September at Pontefract Aspire which is the pool utilised by Knottingley SC.
Results Scorecard /ddsc/UserFiles/Image/QuickUpload/bml-div-4-rnd-2-final-scorecard-25-06-23-_089526.pdf
Times & Splits /ddsc/UserFiles/Image/QuickUpload/bml-rnd-2-2023---times-splits_019906.pdf
