Shellharbour Juniors shine

COMPETITORS from Shellharbour Surf Lifesaving Club returned home from New South Wales Country Championships with their heads held high after achieving some outstanding results at the Port Macquarie event.

The 2007 Stramit NSW Country Surf Life Saving Championships saw more than 1600 athletes from across the state descend upon Port Macquarie last weekend in a brilliant festival of surf lifesaving competition. The three-day carnival began on Friday 19 at Tacking Point Surf Life Saving Club, including 226 events with almost 700 medals on offer.

The Shellharbour contingent produced some outstanding results in the water, but particularly in beach events from Under 8s through to the Masters age group. Some of the highlights for the club at the carnival included the under 10 boys relay that once again showed their dominance of this event by leading the rest of the finalists home by more than 10-15 metres.

Jamie-Lee Cotter made it a clean sweep of the Under 15 girls beach events, and Luke McKay achieving his first gold at Country Championships since starting Nippers as a six year old in the Under 15 Beach Sprint.

Shellharbour had three teams entered in the Two Person R & R (Rescue & Resuscitation). Of the ten teams contesting this traditional disciplined event, the three local teams trained by Dick Plumber all finished in the top five.

Shellharbour Blue (Jordan Field and Alex Westlake) took the event on count back from Shellharbour Red (Chelsea Flood and Kari Ryan) with the Shellharbour Yellow team (Ella Ryan and Naomi Flood) taking fifth placing. The event was a real South Coast Branch event with the Kiama Downs team taking third on count back from Warilla.

The March Past was the final and most spectacular event of the carnival with junior and senior coming together on the beach in a sea of colour. The Shellharbour junior team met some stiff competition, however were placed a credible seventh from seventeen.

Proving there is an event for everybody in Surf Lifesaving, the Shellharbour Mummies March Past showed their skills in this disciplined event by convincingly taking the gold. It was a fantastic reward for the Dick Plumber and Sharon Greathead trained 12 person team following months of training in rain, wind and sun by an extended group of 14 dedicated ladies.

The club now heads into two rounds of Club Championships, followed by the Annual Branch Carnival to be hosted by the Kiama Club on 17 & 18 February.