July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Jay gymnasts deserve support
Rays of Insight
The Patriots are going to state.
For just the second time in school history, that phrase can been uttered about a Jay County High School squad.
Let that sink in.
JCHS has been open for nearly 40 years now. In that span, just two teams have earned trips to the state finals.
The first was the 2006 boys basketball team, which shocked defending semi-state champion Plymouth in overtime to advance to the Class 3A state title game. The second is this year’s Patriot gymnastics team, fighting off a sectional-championship DeKalb squad to pick up its state berth.
Jay County has built a solid tradition of gymnastics success.
It has been to the regional tournament as a team every year since breaking through to win the sectional title in 2003. Hannah Williams, Nadlie Runyon and Katie Snyder have all made individual impacts at the state finals, combining for eight state berths and three medals.
Now, the Patriots will go as a team.
This is a chance for JCHS to continue to build a gymnastics legacy.
Just one senior — Tasya Smith — will compete at 1 p.m. Saturday at Ball State University’s Worthen Arena. The rest of the competition squad will be made up of juniors Malarie Houck and Rhianon Mills and freshmen Lizzy Schoenlein, Maddie Strausburg and Jocelyn Huey, whose experience will hopefully drive them to want to return year after year.
This team showed a lot of promise from the start when it cleared the 98-point mark at its opening meet of the season. They broke 100 on Feb. 3 and hit a high of 104.6 at Marion a few days later.
The Patriots then rallied Feb. 27 against Hagerstown, erasing a deficit of more than two points on the final event to lock up their second straight undefeated season.
The new sectional format was tough on Jay County, but it fought off Homestead, Huntington North and Northrop to finish third behind No. 2 Bishop Dwenger and No. 9 Carroll to earn a regional berth. And then it got the job done again Friday.
Jay County should be proud to have this group of girls representing it at the highest level. Such an accomplishment clearly doesn’t happen every day.
I know a lot of area residents will disperse Saturday, if not earlier, on a variety of spring-break trips. But …
The Patriots are going to state.
So if you have the chance to be at Worthen Arena on Saturday to support them, make the trip.
They deserve it.[[In-content Ad]]
For just the second time in school history, that phrase can been uttered about a Jay County High School squad.
Let that sink in.
JCHS has been open for nearly 40 years now. In that span, just two teams have earned trips to the state finals.
The first was the 2006 boys basketball team, which shocked defending semi-state champion Plymouth in overtime to advance to the Class 3A state title game. The second is this year’s Patriot gymnastics team, fighting off a sectional-championship DeKalb squad to pick up its state berth.
Jay County has built a solid tradition of gymnastics success.
It has been to the regional tournament as a team every year since breaking through to win the sectional title in 2003. Hannah Williams, Nadlie Runyon and Katie Snyder have all made individual impacts at the state finals, combining for eight state berths and three medals.
Now, the Patriots will go as a team.
This is a chance for JCHS to continue to build a gymnastics legacy.
Just one senior — Tasya Smith — will compete at 1 p.m. Saturday at Ball State University’s Worthen Arena. The rest of the competition squad will be made up of juniors Malarie Houck and Rhianon Mills and freshmen Lizzy Schoenlein, Maddie Strausburg and Jocelyn Huey, whose experience will hopefully drive them to want to return year after year.
This team showed a lot of promise from the start when it cleared the 98-point mark at its opening meet of the season. They broke 100 on Feb. 3 and hit a high of 104.6 at Marion a few days later.
The Patriots then rallied Feb. 27 against Hagerstown, erasing a deficit of more than two points on the final event to lock up their second straight undefeated season.
The new sectional format was tough on Jay County, but it fought off Homestead, Huntington North and Northrop to finish third behind No. 2 Bishop Dwenger and No. 9 Carroll to earn a regional berth. And then it got the job done again Friday.
Jay County should be proud to have this group of girls representing it at the highest level. Such an accomplishment clearly doesn’t happen every day.
I know a lot of area residents will disperse Saturday, if not earlier, on a variety of spring-break trips. But …
The Patriots are going to state.
So if you have the chance to be at Worthen Arena on Saturday to support them, make the trip.
They deserve it.[[In-content Ad]]
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