KENDAL swimmers narrowly missed out on retaining the Cumbria Diddy League Trophy at an event in Workington.

Challenging teams from Copeland, Workington and Penrith, the Kendal side didn’t fair too well in the opening events losing some valuable points.

But the ten-year-old Backstroke team, led out by Elliot Woodburn, got their first win. Woodburn was taken over by Adam Stansfield who stormed into an unassailable lead which gave Seth Howell and anchor man Finley Lawson the chance to complete a comfortable victory.

Then came a burst of three wins in a row with Emma Foster and Elliot Woodburn digging deep to produce immaculate performances in the Individual 50 Breaststroke events.

Then the nine-year-old girls got in the mix with Keira Nelson (Backstroke), Elise Tallon (Breaststroke), Olivia Duke (Butterfly) and Emma Capstick storming to a brilliant Medley Relay victory.

Then came the squad's finest spell winning five of the eleven events taking them up to the halfway stage of the Gala.

Four of these came from the Individual 50m sprints of Caitlin Deegan and Jacob Klein (Backstroke) and Lucie Bulman and Elliot Woodburn (Breaststroke).

However going into the second period Kendal found themselves four points adrift of an extremely strong Copeland team.

As in the previous rounds the ten-year-old girls were supreme at Backstroke with Emma Foster, Natalie Pinder, Sophie Gibson, Lucie Bulman producing outstanding swims and takeovers in the Relay, then turning to the 50 sprint Gibson exploded out of her start and pulled clear of her adversaries and in complete command took the win with a fair degree of ease.

They then went on to record another remarkable victory in the Butterfly Relay to keep Kendal in the hunt for glory.

The run in to the finish provided some real excitement where again it was the ten-year-old girls with a Medley win and Gibson taking 50 Freestyle.

Despite fabulous performances by Emma Capstick, James Escombe, Lucie Bulman, Elliot Woodburn, Caitlin Deegan and Jacob Klijn to win the Cannon Relay, Kendal fell just short of their goal and had to be content with the runners up spot, with Copeland emerging as overall winners of the Gala.

However Kendal’s combined results gave them fifth place in the league and a coveted place in the Grand Final at Carlisle in the autumn.