KENDAL swimmers made home advantage count as they finished in third place overall in the latest round of the Cumbria Diddy League to book a place in the final.

In the second of the league galas, Kendal entertained teams from Ulverston, Barrow and Workington.

And after some superb individual and team performances, the home club clinched third place overall behind Barrow and Ulverston which was good enough to take them into the league’s 'B' final to be held in Workington.

The opening relays at breaststroke and backstroke saw Kendal get off to a steady start with the boys doing particularly well in the Relay events.

In the first quarter, the 11-year-old breaststroke team of Alex Tallon, Lewis Airey, Jacob Klijn and Oliver Woodburn combined brilliantly to push their way into second place.

Tallon then produced a superb individual swim to take another second place in the 50m freestyle. The 10-year-olds were also working hard to gain valuable points with Elliot Woodburn, Adam Stansfield, Seth Howell and Finley Lawson battling their way to second place in the backstroke.

A resounding win at 50m breaststroke from Elliot Woodburn took Kendal into third place overall at the end of this session. The next session brought fine performances from the nine-year-olds with Evan Dart (backstroke), Elliot Jones (breaststroke), James Escombe (butterfly) and Sol Priestley Nying (freestyle) getting into the mix taking a handsome win in the medley relay.

Then the girls did their bit with a runners-up spot in the freestyle relay for Elise Tallon, Lucy Klijn, Olivia Duke and Keira Nelson.

It was the turn of the 10-year-old girls to shine at freestyle with Sophie Gibson, Emma Foster, Lucie Bulman and Natalie Pinder picking up points as Kendal maintained their third place overall at the halfway stage.

This combination proved the most successful in the gala as they gave repeat performances at medley and butterfly and breaststroke relays.

In the Individual events, the immaculate Gibson took on the 50m freestyle where she quickly put herself in a position for success and out of her turn put in an injection of pace that found her just touched out of the win.

Lewis Airey had similar luck in the 50m breaststroke having timed his race to perfection, he too had to be content with the runners-up spot.