JCHS girls win 14th

Four years ago Eme Miller and Mary Hudson were a couple of freshmen helping a pair of upperclassmen set a school record. On Thursday night, they switched roles.
In the final race of the last home dual meet of their careers, the pair of seniors teamed with Caitlin Mark and Katy Smeltzer to annihilate the Jay County High School 400-meter relay record.
The record-breaking effort capped a 206-84 victory for the Patriot girls swimmers and finished off the winningest season in JCHS history.
“We just all decided not to hold anything back,” said Hudson after her team pushed its record to 14-3. “It’s me and Eme’s Senior Night and we just wanted to do something amazing, go out with a bang.”
With two meets remaining, the Jay County boys pulled within two victories of tying their school record for wins with a 202-106 trouncing of the Giants.
“It was a good time for us,” said JCHS boys coach Barry Weaver after his team improved to 11-3 to surpass its win total from the last two seasons combined. “We did some really nice things tonight …”
Patriot girls coach Matt Slavik said he felt if Hudson could kick off the final event by swimming the first leg at 59 seconds or faster, the team would break the record. She took off in 58.43, and the remaining three girls delivered on their coach’s prediction.
Mark broke the 1-minute mark for a 100 freestyle for the first time in her career, completing the second leg in 59.77 seconds, and Miller added a 57.95 leg to set up Smeltzer.
The freshman needed only to swim a 59.09 or better and responded with a career-best 56.71 to finish off the destruction of the record.
“I knew we were going to get it,” said Smeltzer. “I was so excited. I swam my heart out.”
The group broke the previous mark of 3:55.27 set in 2008 by Cori Vormohr, Michelle Landfair, Miller and Hudson.“It was kind of unexpected, because we knew we could get it but we didn’t know we could butcher it by three seconds,” said Miller. “So it was really cool just going out there and seeing what we could do.”
“Me and Mary talked about it a little bit and we said, ‘This is our senior night, our senior year, let’s just go out there and give it our all.’ And we did.”
“It was awesome,” added Mark. “I really wanted to swim for Mary and Eme because this is their last time.
“We just all worked really hard and we wanted to do this for a long time. It meant a lot to us.”
Hudson, who also holds the JCHS 100 breaststroke record and is a part of the school-record 200 medley relay team along with Mark, added a victory in the 50 freestyle in 26.7. Miller took the 200 individual medley by more than 20 seconds in 2:29.69.
Fellow senior captain Laura Bowen took the 200 freestyle in 2:21.69, and joined classmates Jocelyn Mann and Marissa Murrell in teaming with Smeltzer to take first in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:58.
Mann, Bowen and Hudson joined Julie Valentine for a winning time of 2:08.56 in the 200 medley relay.
“We have a great team this year,” said Slavik, whose squad broke the record of 12 wins set last season. “Our senior group of girls, they were freshmen when I started, so it’s kind of a big deal for me. … These girls, I can’t speak highly enough.”
Wiley Young led a group of nine senior boys with his victory in 5:47.57 in the 500 freestyle. He was also the runner-up with a time of 24.21 in the 50 freestyle.
Fellow seniors Caleb Hummel, Luke Holcomb and Dylan Friddle added runner-up efforts in the 100 backstroke, 100 freestyle and 200 individual medley respectively.
“The seniors have really done a great job of leading by example,” said Weaver of the group. “Not all of them are first-place swimmers, and none of them are what I would call natural leaders, but … as a group they do their best every time out. And that really helps out. … And they’re a great bunch of guys.”
Josh Lykins and James Keen each picked up two victories for the boys, with Lykins dominating the 200 individual medley by more than 15 seconds in 2:18.81 and taking the 100 freestyle in 54.53. Keen broke the 1-minute mark in the 100 butterfly for the first time in his career to win in 59.43, and was also first in the 50 freestyle in 23.83.
Jay County swept diving with Sammi Compton edging Marion’s Courtney Barber 158.6-156.7 to win the girls competition and Remi Arnold scoring 111.55 points to win the boys.
Alyson Lucas was first in the girls 100 butterfly in 1:15.9, and Kaleb Baldwin took the boys 100 backstroke in 1:08.8.[[In-content Ad]]