Norton Radstock Win Home Gala

Norton Radstock’s final match of the Cotswold League regular season promised to be a close and exciting one as it featured the top two teams, Backwell and Norton Radstock. Going into the match Norton Radstock had to beat Backwell by eighteen points to overtake them and win the league. Norton Radstock had home advantage and, after a thrilling match, they emerged as winners but could only win by nine points from Backwell, so they just fell short of coming top of the league. Cheddar were third and Clevedon fourth in the match.

The League now splits into three play-off matches with the teams finishing in the top eight positions meeting at Hutton Moor for the ‘A’ Final on 8^th May, where Norton Radstock and Backwell will meet again.

Norton Radstock won twenty-five of the fifty-two races in the match but could never quite establish the 18-point lead required over a talented Backwell team. Tim Inns set a new club record in the 50m Freestyle and there were seven other Personal Bests set by Katie Ball, Oliver Beechener, Alice Bowden, Jasmin Hennessy (two), George Hobbs and Andrew Mateer.

There were also some excellent season’s best performances from the relay teams, especially the freestyle team of Olivia Sheppard, Jasmin Hennessy, Mary Inns and Hannah Brooks-Scully, who took four seconds off their previous best time.

Norton Radstock has an excellent set of teachers and coaches and yet again the club has improved on its performance from the previous season.