The win brings an end to Springwood’s long-running hold on the cup and marks a big moment for the Bathurst club on their rise up the region’s ranks.

Club coach Len Grout was thrilled to walk away with the title.

“We beat 26 other clubs, with some of those bigger ones like Kinross and Springwood boasting state medallists,” he said.

“It’s our first time winning this, so it’s a huge victory for the club. We also had five kids finish age champions for the carnival.

“It’s a huge achievement for everyone involved. The kids were ecstatic when they heard. It’s always good to come home with a bit of silverware.”

The first wins for Bathurst on Saturday came back-to-back.

Collette Lyons made easy work of the competition to win the girls nine years 50 metre backstroke in 42.31 seconds before Jasmine Gold smashed her personal best time to win the girls 10 years edition. 

Lyons followed up with a win in the 100m butterfly.

Bathurst took out the first of the meet’s relay events in the 10 years and under girls 200m medley, winning in a thriller over Parkes.

Lyons and Keira Copeland went one-two in the girls nine years 50m butterfly and, shortly after, the first win for the male side of the Bathurst squad came from Toby Partridge over the nine years 50m butterfly.

Mitch Nelson and Thomas Geyer were too good in the boys 100m breaststroke in the 11 and 15 years respectively. 

Nelson then produced a big 2:53.24 personal best time to win a closely-fought 11 years 200m individual medley.

The wins kept coming for Lyons on Saturday in the girls nine years 100m breaststroke and the 200m individual medley.

Todd Nelson claimed the team’s last win of the day in the 50m senior butterfly.

Sunday was another chance for Lyons to show that she’s one of the most dominant swimmers for her age in the Mountains and Plains region. 

She took out the girls 50m breaststroke, 100m freestyle, 50m freestyle and 100m backstroke to go with her wins a day earlier.

The girls 10 years and under 200m freestyle relay side also produced a huge win to go with their medley victory the previous day.

Others to get on the day’s winners list were Zach Telfser (boys senior 200m backstroke, 17 years 50m and 100m freestyle, 100m backstroke), Geyer (15 years 50m breaststroke), Sophia Grout (200m butterfly) and Todd Nelson (boys senior 50m freestyle).

While all the wins produced the biggest points score, it was the consistency across the age groups that gave Bathurst the overall win.

“If you’ve got more depth in your team and more swimmers swimming consistently well, then you’ll do better. The system stops clubs relying on a few strong swimmers to do well,” Grout said.

“We had around 44 swimmers competing in about 247 events. The bigger clubs had a similar size, but we finished consistently higher.

“We’ll now have 10 of our swimmers going to NSW Country.”