The Peel Aquatic and Mandurah Swimming clubs used their home advantage to achieve some outstanding results at 2018 Country Pennants swim meet over the weekend.
The two clubs joined forces to host the event at the Mandurah Aquatic and Recreation Centre, with their swimmers clearly enjoying the familiar surroundings with the clubs taking second and third place in the A-grade respectively.
More swimming:
Peel Aquatic’s second-place campaign was a spirited one, with the club leading the A-grade pack for three of the four sessions before falling just short to the eventual winners, Bunbury Swimming Club, by a mere 8.5 points.
Several Peel swimmers broke records at the meet, with their side also taking out the A-grade relay trophy.
Coach Pat Stellino heaped praise on his crop of swimmers.
“We were really happy with the effort our guys put in and how they competed across the entire weekend,” he said.
“Obviously we would have liked to finish first, but Bunbury just got us in the end.
“Overall it was a great meet for our club, and I think our swimmers really enjoyed being able to use their own pool for a Country Pennants meet.”
Mandurah was not far behind coming in at third in the A-grade, while also taking out the bronze spot in the D-grade competition.
Club president Graham Shackles was delighted with his club’s performance, and said the success of the event was reward for the hard work put in by each club’s volunteers.
“We’re very proud of our swimmers – all of them got to enjoy a good amount of swims and we took home two third place finishes, which is great,” he said.
“In terms of the event, we’ve been rapt with some of the feedback we’re getting, which has all been really positive.
“People loved the facilities, loved how smoothly it ran and they all got to experience Mandurah for a couple of days.
“The work the lifeguards put in was also outstanding, and helped everyone run to plan as well.”
The Pinjarra Piranhas also picked up some good results at the meet, finishing second in D-grade.
It was the first time the Pennants had been run in Mandurah over the course of the event’s 59-year history, with thousands flocking to the city for it.
The two-day long event is one of the largest on the Swimming WA calendar, and pits up and coming swimmers from country regions around the state against each other in hundreds of heats and finals.
Visit swimmingwa.com.au for more information.
Justin Rake
Sports journalist for the Mandurah Mail, Australian Community Media, Fairfax Media.
Sports journalist for the Mandurah Mail, Australian Community Media, Fairfax Media.
