The Utmost Wealth League Match Series continued at the National Sports Centre pool recently.

Local swimmers are now able to compete again in a different set of events from the previous league match and start to test themselves against both their peers and their previous personal bests.

With a fully packed programme, the evening got underway with the 50 metre butterfly.

It was the turn of the girls to go first this time and the 10-year-old category was topped by Lettie Hyett and Beth Christian, both from Peel Swimming Club, with Douglas club’s Aoife Hughes taking third place.

Ramsey’s Aoibh Nash was top of the 11-year-old’s, with Southern’s Kaya Reynolds and Libbie Curphey coming in second and third.

Chloe Batty took the top spot in the 12-year-old group followed by Ellie Cowin and Sophie Christian, while the 13-year-old category was won by Izzy Craig from Harriet Shaw and Bethany Turner-Priest.

Leah Mellor was on form in the 14-year-old girls, with Beatrice Smith and Immy Cooper not far behind. The open age group saw Commonwealth Games swimmer Laura Kinley deviate from her favoured breaststroke and freestyle events to win the 15-year-and-over event, followed by Marcie Dillon and Aimee Myers.

The 10 years and under boys’ saw Peel’s Caleb Crowe swim a spectacular personal best to comfortably secure the win ahead of Southern’s Jamie Farnan and Douglas’s Joey Wright.

In the 11-year-old category Oliver Dowty took the win ahead of Harry Jones and Jack Marshall, while the 12-year-old category was topped by Charlie Foster, Harry Lee and Dylan Larrosa.

Eryk Jurasz had a good race in the 13-year-old group, followed by Matthew Buxton and Finley Maguire.

Thomas Caine, Benny Ellison and Connor Mealin all swam well to take the top three places in the 14-year-old category.

The times dropped rapidly in the open men’s event that saw Joel Watterson and fellow Southern swimmer Alex Turnbull take the first two places followed by Jacob Brookes of Douglas.

The next event was the 50m backstroke which saw a huge number of entries.

Lettie Hyett again took the top spot in the 10-and-unders, with Douglas swimmers Zoe Neuwit and Kelly Maurel close behind.

The same three swimmers topped the 11-year-old’s but in a different order, with a huge personal best from Libbie Curphey putting her at the top closely chased by Kaya Reynolds and Aoibh Nash.

The 12-year-old result replicated that in the fly with Batty, Cowin and Christian evenly matched at the top.

Shaw took the win in the 13-year-old group followed by Kiera Leece and Turner-Priest. In the next age category Martha Broderick swam a personal best to take the win from Cooper and Mellor.

The open female race was won by Emma Hodgson from Kiera Prentice and Aimee Myers.

The same names continued to dominate in the boys’ event, with Crowe again taking the youngest age group win, followed by Farnan and Teddy Thompson.

Aaron Chadwick recorded a personal best time to take the 11-year-old win ahead of Louis Piggin and Elliot Reynolds. Foster made it two from two in the 11-year-olds with Vikram Bhadouria and Rhys Pryce-Jones second and third respectively.

Maguire edged out his Douglas team-mate Jurasz in the 13-year-olds, with Buxton completing the top three. Adam Shuttleworth swam a personal best to take top spot in the 14-year-old class, followed by Ellison and Caine.

In the open male event it was a clean sweep for Douglas with their trio of Harvey Lowe, Jack Burgess and Jim Dudley.

The 15-year-and-over age category was won by Kinley, with Prentice and Myers chasing hard.

In the boys’ event it was Crowe, Farnan and Thompson once more in the 10-and-under age group with Dowty, Piggin and Reynolds top three in the 11-years-old’s, and Foster, Larrosa and Lee in the 12-year-olds.

Jurasz and Maguire switched places at the top of the 13-year-olds, with Southern’s Zack Bellhouse taking third. A little over one second separated the top three 14-year-olds with Harry Harding touching three hundredths of a second before Ellison and Mealin.

Watterson had a convincing win in the open male age category ahead of Lowe and Turnbull, who all completed the four lengths sub-minute.

The 100m breaststroke calls for swimmers to follow more technical rules both in the turns and underwater phase, which can result in more disqualifications than other events.

This proved to be the case in the youngest girls’ age group with only two swimmers, Neuwit and Christian, recording a time. It is all a learning curve and becomes less frequent the more race experience is gained by the swimmers.

Reynolds took first place in the 11-year-olds with Nash and Isla Mealin coming home second and third.

Cowin managed to get the better of Batty in the 12-year-old category with Sophie Christian third. The 13-year-olds saw Shaw take the win followed by Turner-Priest and Belinda Dennett. Mollie Storrie pipped Broderick to the touch by two tenths of a second and Aalin Foster achieved a personal best to come in third.

In the open category Kinley was far ahead of the field again, followed by Prentice and Myers.

The younger boys managed to avoid the fate of their female counterparts and there were no disqualifications with Farnan edging out Crowe this time and Wright third.

The next age groups saw some changes in the placings, which can often be seen in the breaststroke events.

Dowty, Reynolds and Chadwick took the top spots in the 11-year-olds, with Foster, Josh Hollamby and Oliver Cooper leading the way in the 12-year-olds. It was Jurasz, Bellhouse and Buxton this time in the 13-year-olds class, with Mealin, Ellison and Harding reversing their positions in the 14-year-olds.

The open male event saw Turnbull touch first ahead of Ben Grainger and Brookes.

No fewer than 12 women contested the open 200m backstroke event with Hodgson leading the way, challenged by Prentice and Madeleine Hemuss. Similarly, 13 men took on the eight-length backstroke event with Lowe grabbing the win ahead of Burgess and Caine.

There was just enough time to fit in the 400m freestyle event at the end. Prentice took the win in the open female event with a nine-second personal best, ahead of Immy Cooper and Kate Watterson, with Ethan Lace swimming a huge 15-second personal best to take the men’s win ahead of Dudley and Grainger.

The cannon relay is a test of strength and depth of ability across the age groups for each club, but Southern again took the win from Douglas with Ramsey third and Peel fourth.

l Following the recent announcement that the Island Games will not now take place in Guernsey next July it is not yet known when the next ’Friendly Games’ will take place, however special mention goes to the following swimmers for achieving Island Games consideration times.

They are: Joel Watterson (50m and 100m freestyle), Emma Hodgson (50m and 200m backstroke), Laura Kinley (100m breaststroke), Harvey Lowe (200m backstroke) and Kiera Prentice (400m freestyle).

Isle of Man Swimming Association wishes to express its grateful thanks to Utmost Wealth Solutions for the continued support.

Swi

Thomas Caine, Benny Ellison and Connor Mealin all swam well to take the top three places in the 14-year-old category.

The times dropped rapidly in the open men’s event that saw Joel Watterson and fellow Southern swimmer Alex Turnbull take the first two places followed by Jacob Brookes of Douglas.

The next event was the 50m backstroke which saw a huge number of entries.

Lettie Hyett again took the top spot in the 10-and-unders, with Douglas swimmers Zoe Neuwit and Kelly Maurel close behind.

The same three swimmers topped the 11-year-old’s but in a different order, with a huge personal best from Libbie Curphey putting her at the top closely chased by Kaya Reynolds and Aoibh Nash.

The 12-year-old result replicated that in the fly with Batty, Cowin and Christian evenly matched at the top.