CLEAR winners of the Friendly Gala at Kingsbridge on Saturday were hosts Kingsbridge Kingfishers but the other teams certainly did not give up without a fight. Tavistock Swimming Club battled it out for second place with Exmouth and Paignton thoughout the gala with only a few points separating second to fourth places at times. Tavistock?s determination and brilliant team effort won through and they eventually took second place from Paignton by nine points with Exmouth and Devonport Royal in fourth and fifth places respectively. The support was tremendous and no doubt spurred the team on to produce 20 personal best times. In the 10/ under age group, Sam Campbell took 4 seconds off his previous time to give Tavistock full points in the 50m butterfly and Tom Grennan-Cruise took the 50m Freestyle in a 3 second personal best. Felix Davies and William Carter, who was representing Tavistock for the first time, joined Tom and Sam to make up the 4x50m medley relay team and pipped Exmouth to first place by the narrowest of margins - 3/100th second. The tables were turned in the 4x50m freestyle relay with Exmouth just beating Tavistock to the touch by 8/100th of a second. William was named ?Swimmer of the Gala? for a very impressive first competitive swim for the club. Another 10/under swimmer, Rebecca Tansy swam very well on her first outing for Tavistock. Tom Waddington just missed a personal best time with his win in the 12/under 50m Breaststroke but went on to compete in the 14/under age group, finishing third in a personal best time. Jake Broome was the only swimmer in the 14/under age group to clinch an individual first which he achieved in the 50m freestyle but the 14/under 4 x 50m medley relay team of Jake, Joshua Stephens, Tom Waddington, Ross Williams had a very convincing win. A personal best in the 14/under 50m breaststroke gave Kirsty Best first place. Kirsty also swam up an age group to compete in the 16/under 50m breaststroke in which she had an equally convincing win. With only Amy Warnett in the 16/under age group available to swim, the 14/under girls had a busy evening as they swam up an age group in some individuals and the relays. Chris Ralph got full points for Tavistock in both the 16/under 100m individual medley and 50m breaststroke . Full squad (personal bests) ? Laura Radgick (2), Chris Ralph (Boys? captain) (2), Laura Aspen, Joshua Stephens (2), Kirsty Best (1), Tom Waddington (1), Ella Waddington (1), William Carter, Francesca Gould (1), Ross Williams (1), Charlotte Mellor (1), Felix Davis (1), Amy Warnett, Michael Best (1), Catriona Smith, Joshua Thackham, Jake Broome (2), Abigail Best, Danielle Thackham, Will Crocker (1), Kirsty Smith, Alice Warnett, Tom Grennan-Cruise (1), Rebecca Windemer, Sam Campbell (2) Rebecca Tansy. Central Park in Plymouth was the venue for the Devon County Inter-Club Championship in which Tavistock competed with 16 clubs. They had hoped to finish higher than their eventual 15th position but with almost every swimmer achieving at least one personal best time it was quite a successful day and improvement on Tavistock?s position the previous year. Squad - Isobel Grose, Joshua Thackham, Alice Warnett, Joshua Stephens, Danielle Thackham, Jake Broome, Kirsty Best, Chris Ralph, Natalie Greep, Laura Aspen, Ross Williams, Michael Best, Sam Gardiner, James Lake, Joshua Hughes, Tom Waddington, Laura Radick, Sam Broome, Rachael Kelly, Ross Williams.
