Jay leaves no doubt

MUNCIE - As a light drizzle began to fall Tuesday at Muncie Southside High School, most of the athletes were heading for the shelter of their buses.

Not the Patriots.

After coming so close in each of the last two seasons, the Jay County girls track team was more than happy to endure the chilly rain in order to celebrate their first sectional championship in 13 years.

Led by a Herculean effort from junior Jordan McMillan, the Patriots (135 points) left no doubt as they won the 12-team meet by 50 over 2008 champion Muncie Central. Delta was third with 73.

"This just means so much to our team, because the last two years it's been so close and this meet has just been (barely) out of our grasp," said JCHS senior Kari Hemmelgarn, who anchored the winning 4x800-meter relay team and placed third in the 800 run. "Everyone was feeling ready for this meet and wanted it so bad."

Jay County (35-2) finished as the runner-up to Muncie Central last season by just one-fifth of a point because of a five-way tie for eighth place in the high jump. A year earlier it was second to Delta by 10 points when the Eagles held an 18-0 advantage in the pole vault.

"Last year, that was the longest bus ride I've ever been on," said JCHS coach Brian McEvoy, whose team won its sixth title in school history. "I just felt so bad ... to fall (just) short. The pain was something I've never felt before as far as coaching.

"So this feels really good. ... (The girls) worked their tails off to make this happen. ... I think we learned a lot (from last year), and that made this possible. It's a tremendous experience. I couldn't be more proud of the way they handled themselves throughout the season and the way they worked ... and drove each other to make themselves the best they could be."

No one was better Tuesday than McMillan, who matched the effort Brandon Reynard put up last season in leading the JCHS boys team to a sectional title. She won three events and was second in another, scoring 38 points by herself to single-handedly outscore five of the 12 teams.

McMillan's most dramatic domination came in the 200-meter dash, in which she locked up the victory within the first 50 meters. By the time the group made the turn for the home stretch, she had a solid 10-meter lead and cruised to the victory by more than a second over Muncie Central's Alinda Young in 26.99 seconds.

"I wasn't expecting that at all ... I was surprised," said McMillan after the race. "It was nice.

"I'm pumped that we're winning, because we wanted it really bad. I was just surprised how I did."

The junior successfully defended her 100 dash title, fighting off Muncie Southside senior Eboni Collins for first place by one tenth of a second in 12.89. She claimed the long jump by just one-quarter inch on her sixth and final attempt with a leap of 15 feet, 7 inches to edge Wapahani's Lacy Raef.

And in the high jump, McMillan and Union's Marie Lumpkin each cleared the bar at 5 feet even. But Lumpkin took first place because she had fewer misses, and McMillan finished as the runner-up.

"Jordan was just phenomenal tonight," said McEvoy. "There's a lot of pressure packed in a meet like this, and you're getting the best two athletes from (12) schools, and to step up ... and dominate the way she did tonight just says a lot about her character. She did it for her team ... It was just a tremendous effort on her part."

Sophomore Katie Simmons came up with the other individual victory for the Patriots in the 1,600 run.

She ran third behind Winchester's Whitney Wiist and Monroe Central's Hailey Norris for the first lap of the race, but surged to the lead on the second. She pulled away down the stretch, lapping several runners as she finished first four seconds ahead of Norris in 5 minutes, 36.84 seconds.

She was also the runner-up in the 3,200 run in 12:20.35.

"It's exciting," said Simmons, who was injured during the 2009 meet. "I was really nervous leading up to it. ... I knew there were three girls who were all within (eight) seconds of each other.

"The beginning started out super fast ... there was probably a 10-meter difference within the first 200. I just thought to myself, 'I'm not going to take off that fast, and then die at the end.' I really wanted to have a kick at the end."

Jay County dominated the 4x800 relay with Liz Lennartz running in the lead for most of the opening two laps before dropping to second as she handed off the baton to Leah Wellman. But Wellman quickly reclaimed the lead and extended it to about 40 meters by the time she was finished.

Eme Miller extended the advantage, and Hemmelgarn never let anyone get close as the Patriots won by 14 seconds over Muncie Central in 10:36.45.

Maria Murphy qualified for Tuesday's regional meet at Ben Davis with a pair of top-four finishes, placing second in the shot put at 34 feet, 8 3/4 inches and third in the discus with a toss of 111 feet. Wellman finished fourth in the 1,600 run in 5:48.82, and Aly Miller took fourth in the 3,200 run with a time of 12:55.78.

Macey Gerber, Megan Taylor, Kim Braun and Hemmelgarn teamed to take fourth in the 4x400 relay in 4:26.01.

The Patriots narrowly missed several other regional berths with fifth-place finishes from Kelsey Wood (high jump), Gerber (400 dash), Braun (300 hurdles) and Katie Snyder (200 dash). Also scoring points were Snyder (sixth - 100 dash), Abby Denney (sixth - discus), Morgan Link (sixth - 100 hurdles) and Megan Taylor (seventh - 100 hurdles, eighth - 300 hurdles).[[In-content Ad]]