Swimmers re-write record book

The top sectional athletes weren’t so much competing against each other as they were racing the record books.
And they won. Often in spectacular fashion.
Jay County set the tone for a blistering day of swimming as it shattered the 200-yard medley relay sectional record by more than two seconds. It was the first of eight sectional records broken at Saturday’s girls sectional swim meet, from which the host Patriots earned state berths in eight events.
Anne Vormohr, Sophie Bader and Katy Smeltzer each claimed state spots in two individual events, and joined Jamie Valentine and Sydney Mathias to advance in a pair of relays for runner-up JCHS.
“Even though we may not have come out on top, I know our team gave it our all,” said Bader after Jay County finished as the sectional runner-up for the fourth straight season. “And we all had the determination to come out here and win. And we’re sending eight events to state, which is incredible, so I’m really proud of our team.”
The Patriots set five sectional records and won seven events, but trailed Muncie Central, which got two wins and a sectional record from senior Emmy Rawson.
The Bearcats (428 points) took the lead in diving and built its advantage to as many as 50 points before the Patriots closed the gap late to finish second by 23 points.
“I’m disappointed that we didn’t win the team, just because that was one of the goals we set from the beginning of the year,” said JCHS coach Matt Slavik, who was voted sectional coach of the year for the second straight season. “However, you can’t be disappointed in how this team performed. We did everything we possibly could. Muncie Central was just a little bit too deep.”
Cady Farlow of South Adams blazed her way to the fourth-best 100 breaststroke time of any swimmer in the state Saturday as she had a hand in 89 of the eighth-place Starfires’ 108 points.
“Cady was just awesome today,” said SAHS coach Janelle Gresla. “She’s a class-act kid. … It doesn’t surprise me that she can come out and swim like this. …
“All of my girls swam well. I’m really, really pleased.”
The winner of each swimming event, along with any swimmer reaching the automatic state-qualifying standard, advances to the state finals Saturday at the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis. The top four divers move on to Tuesday’s regional.
The Patriots got the record day started when Vormohr gave them a lead of just over a body length as she swam the backstroke leg of the medley relay. Valentine, a freshman, turned the race into a blowout on the breaststroke leg, and Bader and Smeltzer finished off a dominant seven-second win with a sectional, pool and school record time of 1 minute, 50.03 seconds.
Vormohr likened that first record to when a swimmer breaks away from the wall during a race.
“When you break out and you’re swimming off of a turn, it sets the tone for the rest of your race,” she said. “You set the mood for the rest of the meet when we came out and we did that and we had a record.”
Bader gave the Patriots back-to-back record swims when she broke her own sectional mark in winning the 200-yard freestyle by seven seconds in 1:56.83. She qualified for state again in the 100-yard butterfly, finishing second in a school-record 57.75 to Rawson (56.65) but reaching the automatic state-qualifying time in the process.
Vormohr cruised to victories in both of her races, winning the 100 backstroke by nearly 11 seconds and breaking her own sectional and pool record time in 56.2. She was just eight hundredths of a second short of breaking the school record she set while finishing fifth at last season’s state finals.
The sophomore also broke her own sectional and school marks with a winning time of 52.3 in the 100 freestyle.
While Bader and Vormohr both competed at the state finals in two individual events last season, Smeltzer’s sectional effort was a breakthrough. She proved herself worthy of the No. 1 seed she secured Thursday as she had a slight lead at the turn and then powered through the final 25 yards to fight off Bellmont’s Rachel Klingensmith and win the 50 freestyle sectional title in 25.53.
“It was really awesome,” said Smeltzer, who competed at the state finals in two relays last season. “That’s been a goal for me since my freshman year, day one. I wanted to go to state in an individual event. To achieve that twice today, that was just an awesome feeling for me today.”
Her second state berth came in a role reversal as she stepped out of the sprints and into the 500 freestyle. It proved to be no problem as she dropped nine seconds from her preliminary time and won by more than 10 seconds in 5:40.52.
The Patriots closed the meet in the same way they started it — with a record-setting relay. Sydney Mathias, Vormohr, Bader and Smeltzer blew away the field by more than 10 seconds to win in 3:31.53 and break the sectional and pool records Jay County set last season.
No one in the pool destroyed a record by more time than Farlow, who obliterated her own mark in the 100 breaststroke. She was more than half a length of the pool ahead of the rest of the swimmers in the championship race and reached the wall just in time to break the 1:04 mark with a time of 1:03.99.
That broke the previous sectional and pool records by nearly three seconds and surpassed the school-record time of 1:06.58 she posted while finishing 11th at the state finals last season.
“I was so speechless,” said Farlow, a junior, whose jaw dropped when her time flashed on the scoreboard. “It’s just the most humbling feeling to see your training pay off.
“I don’t know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t that. I’m so excited.”
Farlow was also the runner-up in the 200 individual medley trailing only Rawson, who broke her sectional and pool records in 2:09.88.
Valentine posted a career-best time of 1:13.43 to finish second to Farlow in the 100 breaststroke, with teammates Ashley Mark fourth and Taylor Campbell eighth. Emi Minnich, Ashley Mark, Caitlin Mark and Mathias teamed to place third in the 200 freestyle relay.
Alyson Lucas was fourth for JCHS in the 100 freestyle, and Mathias and Ashley Mark added fifth-place efforts in the 50 freestyle and 200 IM respectively. Carli Ostrowski was eighth in the 100 butterfly, and Samantha Link placed eighth in diving.
Scoring in consolation events for the Patriots were Lucas (ninth – 200 freestyle), Mathias (ninth – 100 freestyle), Ostrowski (10th – 200 IM), Heather Stinson (10th – diving), Valentine (11th – 100 butterfly), Caitlin Mark (11th – 100 freestyle, 12th – 100 backstroke), Minnich (11th – 50 freestyle), Campbell (12th – 200 IM), Laurann Schoenlein (14th – 100 backstroke), Rylee Clemmons (15th – 500 freestyle) and Hannah Lykins (15th – 200 freestyle).
South Adams also got points from Riley Thompson (10th – 500 freestyle), Victoria Richardson (13th – 500 freestyle, 13th – 100 breaststroke), Audrey Burson (14th – 100 breaststroke, 16th – 200 IM). The Starfires were sixth in both the 200 medley and 400 freestyle relays.[[In-content Ad]]