LEDBURY and District ASC are celebrating reaching the A final of the PGL league in their first year in this competition.

The team put up a fantastic performance last Saturday night at Stroud resulting in a tie for first place with Cheltenham. Gloucester finished in third place and, unfortunately, Stourbridge failed to compete.

Ledbury were forced to swim a weakened team as some of their key swimmers in the younger age groups were involved in a schools gala at Hereford. Undaunted the reserves proved themselves to be reliable and determined with George Bennion and Bradley Smith covering 15 swims between them!

With the help of team mates Iain Campbell and Iain Docherty they won their nine years breastroke, backstroke and medley relays and finished a close second in the freestyle. George also won the 10/u 25m backstroke race.

Jessica Hunt won the same event in the girls as did Annabelle Wilce in the 11/u age group. Freestyle wins resulted in 20 points for Ledbury with 13/u swimmers, Thomas James and Lucinda Houghton setting a fine example in their 50m events, inspiring Charlotte Wilce, Annabel Wilce and Heather Farmer to win the 12/u, 11/u and 10/u 25m races.

The breaststroke competitors found the deck level pool troublesome for turns but nevertheless dug in hard to produce five excellent first places, Joe Platt (13/u), Amy Tyler (12/u),William Spencer (12/u), Charlotte Scott Wilson (11/u) and Thomas Pinnell (11/u).

Ten-year-old Amelia Watkins was the sole winner in the butterfly events although Luke Rycroft, George Cusworth and Charlie Scott Wilson all gained new PBs whilst being pipped into second places.

The nine years girls' team, Rosie Docherty, Kate Docherty, Emily Docherty, Katie Batley and Josie Rycroft had a 50 per cent success rate in winning both the breaststroke and medley relays, whilst the 10/u team were 100 per cent victorious thanks to Alison Pudge, Heather Farmer, Hannah Bloxsome, Jessica Hunt and Amelia Watkins. Rachael Lea, Lucy Bennion, Amy Tyler and Susan Pudge were the winning 12/u Medley team.

Coach Viv Jones said: "This was a tricky gala for us and the swimmers did extremely well to gain a draw. We have no opportunity to practise in a deck level pool and consequently the turns and finishes were not as slick as I would have liked, even so we recorded 15 PBs.

"Luke Rycroft (freestyle) and Heather Farmer (breaststroke) both won their races but in the process exceeded the set time limit resulting in the acquisition of speeding tickets rather than points!

"Of course it's a little disappointing to lose eight points when the gala is so closely matched but that is the nature of this graded league and I'm very happy to see the swimmers hard work during training rewarded with a faster PB.

"With some sound preparation between now and the final at Worcester on June 29 I am hopeful that we could finish in the medals which would be a great way to finish what has been a very busy and successful term."