Whalan, 14, battled hard to dead heat for a bronze medal in the 14 years girls 100m breaststroke final but more importantly swam a time of 1:18.40, putting her under the 1:18.80 qualifying mark necessary to reach April's nationals.

The breaststroke star led the way for Bathurst in their greatest ever NSW Country Championships performance.

The club came away with three gold, six silver, six bronze, 27 finals appearances and 42 personal bests in a showcase of how far the club has come over the past season.

Stapley said Whalan's qualifying performance is a huge moment in the club's history.

"It's been a long road. We came so close to getting to nationals before COVID shut us down and I guarantee we would have achieved that qualifying time if not for the lockdown," he said.

"Then the times obviously get faster as you age up so we have to begin the chase all over again. Sienna's been agonisingly close on two separate occasions, coming within .3 of a second over the last two months."

Jack Mulligan claimed two of the team's gold medals, winning the men's 10-12 200m and 400m freestyle finals.

The other gold medal went the way of Brooklyn Whalan, who won the women's 10 100m butterfly final.

Stapley said the highlights started to take place from the earliest stages of the meeting.

"It was a really successful weekend, our most successful Country Champs that we've ever had. It was in the first race of the day we managed to achieve a place in the finals and that really set the tone for the rest of the meeting," he said.

"After Sienna got her national qualifying time things just started to roll on from there. We ended up with three golds, six silvers, six bronze, 17 top fives, 27 top tens and 42 PBs for the weekend.

"One of the big stars in that regard was Jack Mulligan, who medalled in a great deal of his events, with two of the gold medals going to him, and he almost PB'd in every single race he went in.

"We had an exciting moment on day one with two medley relay teams in the same event for the first time ever.

"Our 'A' team took our first medal in that event and backed it up with another medal in the freestyle relay the following day."

Mulligan, Oliver Hamer, Kosema Finau and Brodie Cashman earned bronze in the freestyle relay while Mulligan, Cashman, Kosema and Logan Johnson won the medley relay silver.

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