Barcus fourth in HJ

INDIANAPOLIS — Ciera Barcus, Hannah Parker, Becca Coan and Megan Yates cleared the bar at the same height. But Parker is headed to the state finals while the other three jumpers ended their seasons a week earlier than they had hoped.
Barcus led Jay County at the regional meet Tuesday at North Central, finishing fourth in the high jump and leading the Patriots to an 8.5-point effort.
The top three athletes in each event advance to the state finals.
JCHS finished 17th out of 29 teams that scored at the meet. Top-ranked Lawrence Central ran away with the regional title, scoring 146 points to win by 78 points over runner-up Pike.
“We gave a pretty good effort,” said JCHS coach Brian McEvoy. “We got points in (four different events) versus just one athlete scoring points. … It was just a good team effort overall.
“It’s a tough environment. Hopefully it’s a good learning experience for us and it just continues to help us take the next step up.”
Barcus was smooth early in the high jump, clearing the bar on her first attempt at each of the first three heights. She missed her first two tries at 5 feet, 2¼ inches, but came through on her third and final attempt to put herself in the top six.
However, Barcus missed on each of her three chances at 5 feet, 3¼ inches, leaving her deadlocked with Parker and Coan of Chatard and Yates from Monroe Central.
Parker won the tiebreaker because she had fewer misses, giving her third place and the final state-qualifying spot behind Alethia Marrero (5 feet, 4¼ inches) of Ben Davis and Addison Hall (5 feet, 3¼ inches) of the champion Bears.
Barcus and Coan tied for fourth place, and Yates was sixth.
“That’s what’s tough about this sport. That 1 inch was a big deal,” McEvoy said. “That was the difference between going to the state meet and going home, and she was right there on the border. It came down to tiebreaks.
“I think it was a good learning experience for her, and luckily she’s a junior and I think she can bounce back. I think she’s going to continue to improve, so I think it’s just going to be another stepping stone. Hopefully next year she can come down … and get that inch that she needs.”
Team balance has been key for the Patriots all season, and that showed again at the regional as they scored in three other events in addition to the high jump.
The Patriots competed in the fast heat of the 4x100-meter relay, with senior Katie Snyder taking the baton almost even with the No. 4 runners from Eastern Hancock and Perry Meridian. She held off Lauren Spencer of Perry Meridian to give JCHS a seventh-place finish by three hundredths of a second in 51.78 seconds.
Eastern Hancock was sixth in 51.65.
“Our 4x100 did a really good job,” said McEvoy. “They’ve had a really good season. They’ve been rock solid. … I’m just really proud of the effort those girls put together.”
Abigail Johnson was 10th early in the 1,600 run before surging late in the opening lap and moving all the way up to sixth at the 600-meter mark. She held sixth place for the next two laps before fading to eighth place in 5 minutes, 40.08 seconds, as two runners passed her in the final 100 meters.
Malarie Houck overcame the disadvantage of running in the slower heat of the 300 hurdles. She finished as the runner-up in her heat and took eighth place overall in 49.27 seconds.
Snyder narrowly missed scoring points for the Patriots in the sprints. She was ninth in both of her events, posting times of 13.06 in the 100 dash and 27.69 in the 200 dash.
Competing in other individual events for Jay County were Barcus (10th – long jump), Amber Huelskamp (12th – 800 run), Smith (12th – 100 dash), Laux (12th – 200 dash), Emi Minnich (13th – 3,200 run), Morgan Brown (14th – 400 dash), Houck (14th – 100 hurdles) and Megan Wellman (15th – 800 run).
Houck, Huelskamp, Myers and Brown were 10th in the 4x400 relay, and Abbi Dunlavy, Kellie Fortkamp, Wellman and Johnson placed 10th in the 4x800 relay.
Brown, Laux, Minnich, Wellman and Fortkamp were all first-time regional competitors for the Patriots, who will lose only Snyder from its group that competed Tuesday.
“Just the experience is huge,” McEvoy said. “You can’t replicate this in practice. … Any experience you can get on a track like this and against a team like this is going to make you better in the future.”


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