Jay Co. breaks 100

Shelby Pryor saved her best for last. Her teammates were right their with her.
In the Jay County High School gymnastics team’s final home meet of the season, Pryor, a senior, tallied career-best scores on a pair of events to help the Patriots to a season-high total of 101.25.
“It was really exciting,” said Pryor. “It’s the first time we broke 100. Getting a 101 was a good way to end my senior year. I was really proud of everybody.”
That number was good for a pair of wins as JCHS defeated Hagerstown (99.15) and sectional rival Muncie Central (90.575).
“It’s the team’s best this year … so I’m really excited,” said Jay County coach Lora Schlosser, whose team’s previous high score was a 99.7. “We haven’t had tons of meets in the last few weeks so it’s been nice to get some prep time in the gym. They came in and worked hard, especially Shelby, she was really going for personal bests. She definitely did that today.”
Pryor’s top effort came on the floor exercise, where improvement on jumps lifted her to a career-best 8.5 to finish second on the team behind Katie Snyder (9.0). Her previous high was an 8.35.
“I felt like on all my jumps I pointed my toes and I just thought about what Lora’s taught me,” said Pryor, who also had a career-best 5.55 on the uneven bars. “I was definitely proud of myself ... I knew it was my last meet ever (here) and I just wanted to leave it all on the floor and I think I did.”
It was a big night on the floor for the Patriots overall, as sophomore Tasya Smith also posted a career-best by one tenth of a point with an 8.45.
Snyder’s 9.0 on the floor was good for first-place tie with Hagerstown’s Maddie Davis. She scored outright wins on the vault (9.25) and bars (8.65), and was second on the balance beam with an 8.175.
Davis won the beam competition with an 8.625.
In addition to its strong effort on the floor, Jay County also saw big gains on the bars thanks to some increased difficulty. Smith added some high superior skills and changed her dismount to help her to a third-place score of 8.25, and Malarie Houck added a layout that pushed her to a career-best 8.075.
“Bars is where we actually picked up a lot, and then a little bit on vault,” said Schlosser. “Floor we’re just trying to get credit for all of our moves ...
“We’ve been trying to work on our difficulty. Now we’re going to maintain what we have, make it clean, go for no falls.”
Both Houck and Smith have bumped up their difficulty on vault as well switching from a half-half to a half-full, and they finished with scores of 8.8 and 8.7 respectively. Smith added a third-place finish on the balance beam with a 7.95, with Houck following at 7.45.
Cortney Myers, Jay County’s only other senior along with Pryor, narrowly missed a top-three team score on the vault as she matched her career-best score with an 8.65.
Myers also had a 6.975 on the bars and a 6.325 on the beam. Pryor added scores of 8.55 on the vault and 6.625 on the beam.
“They have good, positive attitudes,” said Schlosser of her senior duo. “They’ve been good role models for the younger ones because they’re good, sweet girls.”[[In-content Ad]]