JC girls defeat Stars

BERNE — Monday’s win was a long time coming for the Patriots.
Jay County High School’s girls swim team got a double win from senior Charlotte Becot and swept the relay events Tuesday to defeat the host South Adams Starfires 124-62. The SAHS boys topped Jay County 113-70.
“Beating South Adams, especially at South Adams, is never easy,” said JCHS girls coach Matt Slavik after his team handed the Starfires (6-1) their first defeat. “This is my second time here. The first year we got beat by (three points). It’s nice to bounce back and have a convincing win.”
Jay County (7-2), which had not topped the Starfires in more than a decade, thought it had a 93-92 victory in the 2008 meet at SAHS. But the result was reversed the next day when the IHSAA ruled on a protest filed by Starfire coach Janelle Gresla, resulting in the disqualification of a Patriot relay team.
Becot led Jay County individually Monday with her effort in the freestyle sprints, winning the 50-yard event in 26.55 seconds and the 100 by nearly three seconds in 58.06. She was also part of the winning 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams.
“Charlotte swam an outstanding 50 freestyle to win it,” said Slavik. “That’s a half-second faster than she’s gone. .. And then in the 100 free she came back and went a 58.0, again her fastest time of the season.
“I look for Charlotte to do a lot of good things the rest of the year. We’re seeing some good time drops going into Christmas.”
The South Adams boys took two of the top three places in all but one individual event as they improved to 3-1 on the year.
Mitchel Kaverman finished off that strong effort with a time of 1 minute, 14.2 seconds to take first place in the 100 breaststroke ahead of teammate Bobby Switzer.
The Starfires also went one-two in diving with Lance Hummer first with 176.95 points and Josh Armenta second.
Wiley Young was the lone double winner on the boys side, leading Jay County with victories in the 200 individual medley in 2:22.96 and the 100 freestyle in 55.1.
Neal Fennig took the 200 freestyle at 1:57.4, and finished off a comeback win for the Patriots in the 400 freestyle relay.
“Neal is sicker than a dog. He can’t hardly move, but he wanted to swim it,” said Weaver of the meet-ending relay. “Wiley (Young) really set him up for (the comeback).
“I think we swam well. It was just one of those things where we were fighting for first, but they were covering third and fourth pretty easily.”
Erika Waugh, a state qualifier in each of the last two seasons, picked up the only victories for the South Adams girls. She was first in the 200 freestyle in 2:06.28 and the 500 freestyle at 5:32.4.
Other wins for the JCHS girls came from Megan Taylor (diving), Mary Hudson (100 butterfly), Eme Miller (200 individual medley), Brie McGhee (100 backstroke) and Elaine Hemmelgarn (100 breaststroke.)
Cole Farlow (50 freestyle), Jacob Werst (100 butterfly), Caleb Wurster (500 freestyle) and Joel Schmidt (100 backstroke) added wins for the South Adams boys.[[In-content Ad]]