Newry & Mourne ASC Make Triple History on the Way to Playoffs

Saturday 13 April saw Newry Amateur Swimming Club make it to the division 3 promotion play off finals for a second time in so many years with a fabulous victory over Ballymoney at Ballymoney.

This result followed a fine victory over Lecale the previous weekend.

Going to Ballymoney Newry knew that only a win would guarantee them a place in the finals. However despite not having a lot of first team swimmers available the coaches worked hard with the young swimmers and convinced them to believe in themselves that this was their time to shine for their club.

And shine they did. The scene was set for a fabulous night when young Ben Rafferty set a blistering pace of 16.84 in the 25m Front crawl. Not only did Ben break a nine year club record but he became the first “A” group boy in the clubs history to go under 17 seconds.

Not to be undone by this young contender the more experienced “D” group swimmers and Aquasprint Captains Cathal Kearney and Juliana Kelly broke club records in the breast stroke and swam a fantastic 18.32 and 18.25 respectively. In fact they both also became the first “D” group swimmers in the clubs history to go under 19 seconds in the breast stroke.

While Ben, Cathal and Juliana were making club history many of Newry’s swimmers were making their own history with personal best times of their own, those being:-

Aimee Burns, Kerry Burns, Isabella Collins, Ben Cunningham, Jack Donnelly, Eve Dunford, Rachel Kelly, Jack Magill, Clara McKeever, Aaron McNamee, Odran Murdock, Finn Murdock and Wictoria Snopek.

All these young swimmers are now reaping the rewards of their hard work in the pool in the early hours of Tuesday, Saturdays and Sundays and late evenings and show that the future is very bright for Newry & Mourne ASC especially with new facilities coming their way when the new Newry pool is completed.

Newry now go into the three way promotion finals with plenty of confidence against Sliabh Beagh and Limavady and must surely be looking good for promotion after so narrowly missing out last year to Coleraine.

Newry coaches encourages as many parents as possible to come along to the finals on June 7th to encourage the team back to division two of the prestigious Aquasprint Amateur Swimming League.

By Gerry Heaney