Club's trio lead charge by North's juniors

A Whangarei Swimming Club trio reaped rewards at the New Zealand Junior Swimming Championships, hauling in six medals between them.

The Dave Girbin-coached trio of Ellie Eastwood, Samantha Bailey and Callum Prime were part of a 37-strong Northland team who contested the annual championships, which were held at Hamilton and Wellington simultaneously.

Ten-year-old Bailey swam a personal best time of 1:20:16 in the 100m butterfly to bring home Northland's sole gold medal.

She then backed it up with a bronze medal in the 50m fly and made it to the 10th spot in the 200m individual medley.

Eastwood headed into the weekend's competition seeking to defend the three gold medals she won last year as a 10-year-old in the 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke.

Despite swimming personal best times in the finals, Eastwood was pipped for gold in all three breaststroke races by North Shore swimmer Conor Tarrant. The 11-year-old had to settle for age group silver this time around in the 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke.

Eastwood also improved her 200m freestyle and 100m free times, finishing fifth and seventh respectively in her age group.

Prime, Northland's highest-ranked junior male swimmer, charged home to win bronze in the 100m backstroke in the 12-year-old boys age group and narrowly missed out on bronze in the 200m backstroke.

He also placed seventh in both the 200m IM and 50m backstroke.

A number of Northland swimmers also claimed top 10 finishes, including Northwave's Mia Gordon who was fourth in the 9-year-old girls 200m breaststroke and 12-year-old Heremia Murray from Nga Papahu Swim Club who was eighth in the 400m free and 10th in the 200m free.

Bream Bay's Turanga Morgan Edmonds, 12, was sixth in the 200m backstroke.

Northland team manager Brent Eastwood said it was pleasing to see so many personal bests swum among the young Northland swimmers, and also to win one more medal than last year's total of five.