Patriots dominant vs. AC

There was no danger of the Patriots suffering their first defeat. They had enough points to win the meet in the first four events.
Jay County went on to win every event Monday and swept the top four places three times, including in a relay, as it rolled to a 233-64 victory in girls swimming over the visiting Adams Central Flying Jets.
“I think overall we did a great job,” said JCHS coach Matt Slavik, whose team won the season-opening Norwell Invitational and is now 3-0 in dual meets. “We’re swimming off events just seeing where we’re at and what our conditioning is and what some of our weaknesses are. Tonight showed a few of those. It also showed a lot of strengths. …
“We’ve got 32 swimmers and divers on this team, and tonight every single one of them contributed. Every single one of them scored tonight.
“All across the board, the girls did outstanding.”
Sophomore Katy Smeltzer and freshmen Sophie Bader and Anne Vormohr set the pace for the Patriots, each winning a pair of individual events and contributing to two first-place relays.
Smeltzer turned in a career-best time by seven seconds to cruise to a 21-second win in the 200-yard individual medley in 2 minutes, 32.45 seconds. Later she added a victory in the 100 butterfly with a time of 1:07.11.
She also led off a pair of winning relays, joining Alyson Lucas, Darcy Parker and Bader to take the 200 freestyle in 1:53.25 and teaming with Ashley Mark, Caitlin Mark and Vormohr to finish first in the 400 freestyle in 4:14.97.
“Some of the changes that she’s been making, I think are proving to be beneficial,” said Slavik. “She’s just relaxing when she swims. She gets really uptight and she tries to muscle through it. When you’re swimming events like the 100 fly if you do that you die going home. She’s just trying to relax and stretch and think about technique more.”
Bader and Vormohr each led a sweep, with the former taking the 100 freestyle in 57.12 seconds ahead of teammates Lucas, Liza Haggenjos and Sarah Heitkamp. Vormohr posted a time of 25.37 to win the 50 freestyle with Julie Valentine second, Rachel Vogler third and Brianna Haywood fourth.
The second individual win for Bader came in the 100 breaststroke in 1:12.68 while Vormohr cruised to a victory by nearly 25 seconds in the 100 backstroke at 59.98.
The cousins also teamed up with the Mark sisters to set the pace in the medley relay sweep at 2:01.19.
Ashley Mark surged in the final 25 yards of the 200 freestyle to edge Lucas by less than a tenth of a second in 2:22.84. Caitlin Mark, a junior, held off her freshman sister in the 500 freestyle for a winning time of 6:24.72.
“Ashley swam the 200 and the 500 tonight and in both races she toughed it out great,” said Slavik. “She went a personal best in both of them … That’s encouraging.
 “Caitlin is coming on. She had a good 500 swim,” he added noting that Mark had just one event off between the 100 butterfly and the longest event of the evening. “She had a lot more left over than I think she thought she would have.”
Valentine had a couple of runner-up efforts as she finished behind Vormohr in the 50 freestyle and Bader in the 100 breaststroke. Lucas was second in the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle.
Other third-place finishes came from Taylor Campbell (200 individual medley), Rylee Clemmons (100 butterfly) and Parker (100 backstroke).
Jay County was uncontested in diving, but had a close intrasquad competition with Sammi Compton coming through on the final dive to eke out a win over Vogler, 143.4-143.25. Laci Hall was third at 136.9.[[In-content Ad]]