WINTER HAVEN | For their first-ever meet, Lakeland Area Swimming team members didn't fare too badly. They still have a long way to go to catch what the Winter Haven Stingrays have been doing, but the LAS team will gladly take what it accomplished this weekend at the Rowdy Cup.

LAS, which was formed about one month ago by former Bartow swimming star and current FSC swim coach Duncan Sherrard, got another second-place finish from David Wong on Sunday. Wong's fifth top-three finish of the weekend helped put him in fourth for the individual points race, finishing only one point out of third.

"We had a good turnout with our 12-and-under which is really nice to see," assistant coach Mike Blum said. "Overall we had a really good weekend. This is the best thing we could've hoped for."

LAS brought 12 swimmers to the meet at Rowdy Gaines Pool and Blum had the unenviable task of trying to settle the nerves of his swimmers, most of whom had never competed at a meet the size of the Rowdy Cup, which had more than 350 kids competing.

"Most of the struggles came with the 8-and-under kids," Blum said. "They've never seen a pool this big. It's actually a lot of fun seeing how they react. The kids go from seeing 15 to 20 of the same faces everyday to seeing 300 new faces they have never seen before. It's a little intimidating."

The more established Stingrays team is used to the spotlight of intense competition and it showed in the team standings. The Stingrays placed third overall with a point total of 451 points.

The overall winner was Tampa Bay Aquatics, which rallied from second place on Saturday to beat Brandon Sports and Aquatic Center with 764.50 points. Brandon finished with 739.50 points.

The Stingrays got one individual win on Sunday from Jordan Kendall, who won the Boys 13-14 100 meter backstroke with a time of 1 minute, 10.65 seconds. Kendall touched the wall three hundredths of a second before Quinn Poti from the Blue Dolfins team.

Kendall's five other brothers and sisters continued to have an excellent meet.

Jordan's brother Luke finished just ahead of him in the 13-14 200 butterfly, as they took second and third. Luke and Jordan's younger brother Noah finished second in the 10-and-under 100 butterfly with a time of 1:29.53. Noah also took third in the 10-and-under individual points race.

Bekah Howard also grabbed a second-place ribbon in the Girls 13-14 200 breaststroke, finishing just more than one second behind Brandon's Merrill Wilson. Howard finished with a time of 2:57.69. I.V. Simons and Jeffrey Shilts took home third-place ribbons in the Boys 11-12 100 breaststroke and 50 freestyle events respectively.

"It was an extremely pleasurable weekend," Winter Haven Stingrays coach Jim Grazier said. "The team did outstanding. We held our own and I'm happy for the kids that they pulled it off as a team and gave it a big effort like they did."