Strong in the field

MUNCIE — The Bearcats and Eagles shared the championship. But no one was better in the field events than the Patriots.
Two nights after the Jay County High School girls swept the field events in their track sectional, the boys team won three out of four Thursday on the way to a third-place finish at the tournament at Muncie Central.
Tyler Back powered the Patriots to 96 points with victories in the shot put and discus, and Cade Price added a win in the high jump. The team scored nearly half of its points in those three events.
“It was a solid day for us,” said JCHS coach Greg Garringer, whose team had 10 regional qualifiers and scored almost 20 more points than when it finished fourth a year ago. “We went one-two in the high jump, qualified both guys in the discus to move on. Back swept the throws and hit 50 (feet in the shot put).
“Getting all these guys through, we’re pretty happy with that.”
The top four athletes in each event advance to regional competition, which will be contested Thursday at North Central.
Jay County finished behind the host Bearcats and Delta, both of which finished with 127 points. Delta needed to tally just a single point in the final event — the 4x400-meter relay — to secure the title, but went scoreless with a ninth-place finish while Muncie Central won to forge the tie.
Wapahani was a distant fourth in the 12-team field with 61.
Back was heavily favored in the shot put, but entered as the No. 4 seed in a tightly-packed field in the discus.
However, the Patriot junior set the tone as he took the lead with a career-best toss of 126 feet, 4 inches, in the preliminary round.
That throw stood up through the finals as Back won the championship ahead of Delta’s Nate Sanders (125 feet, 7½ inches).
Back was never challenged in the shot put, establishing himself as the leader early on. But he still wasn’t quite satisfied.
A cheer went up from the Jay County fans on his second-to-last throw, which flew a career-best 50 feet, 1 inch.
“I don’t even know what to think right now,” said Back, whose previous best was 49 feet, 5 inches. “My throwing coach (Josh Swift) … was trying to get me going. I guess it worked. I finally broke 50.
“It feels great. I didn’t even move on last year in discus, so it feels really good to move up four spots and then win shot put too.”
JCHS sophomore Andrew Eley joined back in advancing in the discus as he placed fourth in 123 feet, 10 inches. He was also sixth at 41 feet, 4 inches, in the shot put.
“They’re great … together,” said Garringer of his throwers. “They talk with each other. They work with each other. They’re real technical.
“(For Tyler) it was just a matter of time. His distances improved so much from last year. We think, truly, he’s going to be a legitimate contender to be a state qualifier next year.”
The Patriots owned the high jump as well as Price and Zane Shreve were the only athletes to go beyond the 5 foot, 10 inch, mark.
Shreve thought he had a chance at the victory when he cleared the bar on his first try at 6 feet even immediately after finishing as the runner-up in the 100-meter hurdles in 15.89. But Price cleared the bar on his second attempt and went on to make it at both 6 feet, 2 inches, and a 6 feet, 3 inches to take the title.
“It’s awesome for Jay County to have one and two,” said Price as he and Shreve both turned in career-best efforts. “I’m pretty pumped. I’ve never got that high.
“I attacked the bar harder. I had more speed towards the bar … It just felt really good.”
In addition to his pair of second-place finishes, Shreve also took third in the 300 hurdles in 42.77.
Dylan Cope was fourth early in the 1,600 run, but worked his way up to second by the end of the third lap. He held that spot easily, finishing as the runner-up in 4 minutes, 40.58 seconds.
Austin Bentz sat in second place after the first two laps of the 3,200 run and held on for a third-place finish by just 0.26 seconds over Muncie Central’s Dean Prybylla in 10:29.6.
“Bentz ran a fantastic 3,200,” said Garringer. “That was by far his best run of the year. He fought through that.”
Bentz put Jay County in third place on the opening leg of the 4x800 relay, and Brad Leuthold moved the Patriots up to second place 300 meters into his second leg. Nick Leonhard and Cope each dropped briefly to third place on the final two legs, but both surged back as JCHS posted a time of 8:30.6 for second place.
The Patriots also qualified for the regional meet in the 4x400 relay, with Darren Bogenschutz, Blake Crouch, Leuthold and Cope posting a time of 3:37.38.
Also scoring for Jay County were Leuthold (sixth – 400 dash), Crouch (seventh – 200 dash) and Jalen Ryder (eighth – 3,200 run). The 4x100 relay team of Price, Bogenschutz, Shreve and Crouch was sixth in 47.26.[[In-content Ad]]