MEMBERS of Ledbury Swimming Club were celebrating their second round win in the Wyvern League at Newport on Saturday afternoon.

A 96-point lead over closest rivals, Heads of the Valley, set their hopes high to realize their ambition of retaining the trophy at the final in May.

LADASC were off to an excellent start with the 11- year-old freestyle relay teams of Sally Fitzpatrick, Alice Price, Katherine Berry, Gemma Laing, Jake Kirby, Michael Adair, William Wilce and Daniel Adair setting a blistering pace to win the first two events. A feat emulated by the 15/U relay teams of James Middleton, George Bennion, Arron Almond, Thomas Stokes, Eloise van Vuren, Emma Fitzpatrick, Caitlin Clark and Hannah Bloxsome.

Individual events followed, with personal best times for Laura Quigley in the 10 year backstroke, George Bennion in the 13/U butterfly, Daniel Adair in the 11/U breaststroke, Eloise van Vuren and Thomas Stokes in the 15/U freestyle. Both Eloise and Tom achieved district qualifying times in their events.

The next events saw Ledbury swimmers triumphant in the freestyle relays. Charlie Green, Sam Parsons and Alice Quigley all having good relay swims in their first team swims of the season, as did Emma Fitzpatrick, who is recovering from injury.

Once again the babies of the team were invincible in the nine years age group. With good discipline and sound technique, Penny Green, Elizabeth Thomas, Calypso Harvey, Laura Quigley, Morgan Crosshoare, Daniel Clark, William Park and Alex Middleton relished their victories in both the freestyle and medley relays, amassing a precious 24 points for the scoreboard. For Morgan it was his debut for LADASC, and he swam well in both relay events.

The 15/U breaststroke brought victory and personal bests for Lucy Stokes and James Middleton, Lucy in a district qualifying time, and James broke the one minute 20 second barrier, a breakthrough time for him.

Alice Price and William Wilce achieved personal bests in the 10 year freestyle, as did Gemma Laing in the 10 year butterfly, George Bennion in the 13/U breaststroke, Katherine Berry and Daniel Adair in the 11/U freestyle and Arron Almond in the 15/U butterfly, all of which is good preparation for the forthcoming County Championships in March.

After 40 events Ledbury had a 75-point lead over the second place team, Chepstow. However, Ledbury did not rest on their laurels in the final events. The medley relays saw some very exciting races and close finishes, with victory in each going to Ledbury. The final individual events before the canon saw more personal bests and first places for Daniel Adair in the 11/U butterfly, Peter Crocombe in the 10 years breaststroke and David Middleton in the 13/U freestyle.

The final event, the mixed canon was by no means a formality, producing as it did a very exciting finale to the afternoon's gala with first place awarded to Ledbury. The final scores were Ledbury 311 points, Heads of the Valley 215, Chepstow 212, Hereford 167 and Cwmbran 135.

Coach Viv Jones said: "Ledbury won 46 out of 53 events, achieving 17 personal best times in individual events as well as winning all 21 relays, which demonstrated the depth of the entire squad."

She went on to say that both Heads of the Valley and Hereford had swimmers at open meets and so would produce stiffer opposition at the next round in Ross on February 25.