1st after 25 years

From the moment Tevan Nichols crossed the finish line to win the meet-opening 4x800-meter relay to the moment Joe Rasmussen crossed again to win the meet-ending 4x400 relay, the Patriots were in control.

In between, Brandon Reynard selflessly ran his team to victory.

Reynard's all-time great performance, along with a win from Dexter Shreve and the bookend relays, lifted the Jay County High School boys track team to its first second title in 25 years.

"It feels great, since it has been 25 years," said Reynard, who won three events and finished second in a fourth to power the Patriots. "I mean, this will be something for the seniors that worked really hard, to finally get a trophy."

JCHS scored 124.5 points Thursday evening at the Muncie Central sectional, outdistancing runner-up Delta (108) and the host Bearcats (106.5). Defending champion Muncie Southside placed fourth with 91.

"It's just awesome," said Shreve, the 400-meter dash champion. "We've worked pretty hard this year. We were so close last year and didn't know if we'd be able to come back."

The expert on coming back was Reynard, who spent his evening blazing down the track and then jogging back to the start line to do it all over again. The senior ran seven races - three preliminaries and four finals - as he turned in an effort for the ages.

Reynard's first championship race of the day came in the 100 hurdles, in which he got off to a slow start that had him in third midway through the race. However, he surged to second and then managed to nip Winchester's Gabe Detro and the finish line to win the race by two hundredths of a second in 15.49 seconds.

"In the 110s I was seeded second. I had a really bad start in the finals," said Reynard. "I ended up getting my steps up and ended up pulling it off."

Having already run three preliminaries and one final, he had to hurry back to the start line to compete in the next event - the 100 dash.

Again he was off the pace a bit early, but made a late charge, narrowly missing victory as only four hundredths of a second separated the top three runners.

Reynard finished in 11.4, only two hundredths ahead of Central's Michael Nixon. Teddy Dawson of Delta was the only person who stood between Reynard and a perfect night as he won the race in 11.38.

"He ran seven races today, and some of them were back-to-back-to-back," said JCHS coach Greg Garringer. "He wins the 110s, and that (Detro) is pretty tough. Dawson ran a great race in the 100 and caught Brandon ..."

But after Dawson fought off Reynard for the 100 dash title, no one else had a chance.

Getting a chance to rest before taking the track again, Reynard went unchallenged in the 300 hurdles. He was first out of the blocks, cleared the opening hurdle first, was unfazed by an extra-high hurdle and ran down the home stretch all alone to win by exactly three seconds in 39.28.

"I started out hard and kept going hard," said Reynard. "Coming out of the turn there was one set of hurdles that was one set too high. I almost fell over it, but still got a low 39."

Despite the one miss-set hurdle, his time was one hundredth of a second faster than he ran to finish fifth in the state finals last season.

The story was much the same for the 200 dash, where Reynard got off to another strong start. He broke from the curve in first place and outran Dawson by four tenths of a second to win in 22.71.

Reynard's three wins and runner-up finish scored 38 points for the Patriots. That total was more than seven of the other 11 teams represented at the meet.

"Brandon had a fantastic night," said Central coach Phil Seale, whose team was second to Jay County for most of the meet before fading to third. "To go four individual events and to win three of them is just fantastic. ... It's going to be exciting to see him go down and compete ... in the regional.

"He's a great kid. They're lucky to have somebody like him. He cares about the program and wants to do well not only for himself, but for the team."

Shreve, a state qualifier last season in the long jump, earned the other individual sectional championship for JCHS in the 400 dash. He got a brief challenge on the final turn, but fought it off and pulled away to repeat his 2008 title by nearly two seconds in 50.91.

He also qualified for the regional meet by placing second in the high jump at 6 feet, 3 inches. Delta's Logan Young won the event at 6 feet, 4 inches.

"Dexter was (high) jumping a little bit better today," said Garringer. "I think if he runs a quality 400, he could go (to state) in the 400.

"He's focused. ... He did what he had to do. ... I know he's got a 48 or a 49 in him and he's got to pull it out next week."

Shreve ran the lead leg for the Patriots' winning 4x400 relay team, which trailed only briefly in the entire race. After Shreve took the lead, Kyle Simmons held it on the second leg.

Brady Mills fell to second place on the back stretch of the third lap, but reclaimed the lead before handing off the baton to Rasmussen. The foreign exchange student from Denmark brought home the victory in 3-minutes, 34.42 seconds.

Rasmussen, Mills and Simmons also ran on Jay County's winning 4x800 relay team, which kicked off the meet in style and played a major role in the Patriots' team title.

After Rasmussen ran most of the first lap in second place, Mills pushed to the lead and Kyle Simmons opened it to about 60 meters before handing off to Tevan Nichols for the final leg. Nichols maintained the advantage as the Patriots won by nearly 14 seconds in 8:25.47.

Distance events had been a weak spot for years for JCHS, but that was not the case Thursday. The team also got a regional-qualifying, fourth-place finish from Rasmussen in the 800 run in 2:02.5, a sixth-place effort from Mills in the 800, and fifth and sixth place finishes from Nichols in the 1,600 and 3,200 runs respectively.

In the past five seasons JCHS had never finished higher than sixth in the 4x800 relay.

During that same span, the team had managed just a total of two points in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 runs combined. This season, they scored 15.

"We knew that one area that we needed to work on was our middle and long distance," said Garringer. "We filled those holes this year. ... Our 4x4 and 4x8 kids ran great races.

"We were really happy with both relay teams."

Lance Franklin gave the Patriots a third runner-up finish with his toss of 133 feet, 4 inches in the discus. He was also sixth in the shot put at 44 feet even.

Zach Cash earned a regional berth in the 300 hurdles, placing third behind Reynard in 43.11. He added a seventh-place effort in the 110 hurdles with a time of 17.73.

Simmons, running for the first time as a senior, qualified for the regional in the 400 dash in 53.53 for place third behind Shreve.

The Patriots' 4x100 relay team of Ben Vance, Garrett Krieg, Gary Corle and Dalton McGill missed a regional berth by less than one second, placing fifth in the 4x100 relay in 46.58.[[In-content Ad]]