May 17, 2016 at 5:41 p.m.
Teams eyeing tourney success
Rays of Insight
It starts today.
After the weekend’s chilly temperatures and a frost advisory overnight Sunday into Monday morning, it hardly seems as if spring has even arrived.
But today marks the beginning of the end for Indiana high school sports.
Girls track kicks off the spring sports season, with teams across the state participating in sectional tournaments today.
For Jay County, that means a trip to Delta. Meanwhile, South Adams will travel to New Haven.
Both have a legitimate chance to hoist the trophy at the end of the night.
By the weekend, half of the spring sports — girls tennis follows Wednesday and boys track Thursday — will have their sectionals complete.
All teams enter the postseason hoping to compete beyond the sectional. Let’s take a look at some of the area squads with tournament potential.
FRHS baseball
OK, so admittedly I might be cheating on this one a little bit.
Ohio’s spring tournament’s take on a different format than those in Indiana — the Buckeye state starts playing sectional games before the regular season is over — so the Indians have already won their sectional title. They continue what they hope will be a deep tournament run Wednesday when they travel to Coldwater to take on Midwest Athletic Conference rival St. Henry.
But if I can point to any team with tournament potential, it would have to be a team that has already proven its ability. And though Fort Recovery graduated some key players from last year’s state final four team, there are plenty of Indians back in the fold.
This season didn’t start with the wild success FRHS had a year ago when it won 17 straight games to open the season.
Still, with senior Jackson Hobbs and sophomore Nick Thwaits leading the pitching staff, there’s every reason to believe the Indians (18-8) can make it back to Columbus.
To get there, though, they’ll need to avenge a regular-season loss. They fell 3-2 in extra innings less than two weeks ago to the team they must past just to get to the district championship.
See Insight page 9
INSIGHT
Continued from page 10
SAHS softball
The Starfires already were one of the favorites to win their second sectional title in school history. After Monday night, they are the favorite.
Having finished two spots ahead of its closest rival to the north in the Class 2A Indiana Coaches of Girls Sports Association poll voting earlier in the day — 11th compared to 13th — South Adams went out and proved it deserved that position as it knocked off Adams Central 6-5. The game wasn’t that close most of the way, as the Starfires gradually built a 6-0 lead before holding off a Flying Jets rally in the seventh. The win earned them a share of the Allen County Athletic Conference title.
South Adams is a balanced team, with junior Katelin Augsburger giving it the kind of arm that can help hoist a trophy. In Monday’s win, she racked up 12 strikeouts to help take the pressure off of her defense.
Abby Myers and Augsberger each had a pair of RBIs against the Flying Jets. And those came just two days after junior Morgan Alberson hit her second home run of the season — a two-run walk-off shot — to complete a doubleheader sweep of Eastbrook
JCHS girls track
No team in the area has been more consistently successful at the sectional level as these Patriots.
Prior to finishing second to Yorktown last season, Jay County had won five consecutive titles. Most of those victories had come in blowout fashion. Prior to that streak, it had finished as the runner-up a couple of times in agonizingly-close fashion. (They fell short of the title by one-fifth of a point in 2009.)
Now the Patriots want to reclaim the trophy that eluded them last year, and on Friday night, they showed the formula they will follow in the attempt to do so. At the ACAC championships, they won fewer events (four) than runner-up South Adams (five) but were near the top in everything. If they didn’t win something, it was a sure thing that they were second or third. And they put two athletes in the top eight in 11 of 12 individual events.
In track, that’s a formula for success.
Every once in a while, there will be an individual athlete who carries the team on her back — Jordan McMillan racked up 38 points all by herself when JCHS won the 2010 sectional title — but most often it takes balance and depth.
The Patriots have it. And tonight they hope to have the sectional championship as well.
After the weekend’s chilly temperatures and a frost advisory overnight Sunday into Monday morning, it hardly seems as if spring has even arrived.
But today marks the beginning of the end for Indiana high school sports.
Girls track kicks off the spring sports season, with teams across the state participating in sectional tournaments today.
For Jay County, that means a trip to Delta. Meanwhile, South Adams will travel to New Haven.
Both have a legitimate chance to hoist the trophy at the end of the night.
By the weekend, half of the spring sports — girls tennis follows Wednesday and boys track Thursday — will have their sectionals complete.
All teams enter the postseason hoping to compete beyond the sectional. Let’s take a look at some of the area squads with tournament potential.
FRHS baseball
OK, so admittedly I might be cheating on this one a little bit.
Ohio’s spring tournament’s take on a different format than those in Indiana — the Buckeye state starts playing sectional games before the regular season is over — so the Indians have already won their sectional title. They continue what they hope will be a deep tournament run Wednesday when they travel to Coldwater to take on Midwest Athletic Conference rival St. Henry.
But if I can point to any team with tournament potential, it would have to be a team that has already proven its ability. And though Fort Recovery graduated some key players from last year’s state final four team, there are plenty of Indians back in the fold.
This season didn’t start with the wild success FRHS had a year ago when it won 17 straight games to open the season.
Still, with senior Jackson Hobbs and sophomore Nick Thwaits leading the pitching staff, there’s every reason to believe the Indians (18-8) can make it back to Columbus.
To get there, though, they’ll need to avenge a regular-season loss. They fell 3-2 in extra innings less than two weeks ago to the team they must past just to get to the district championship.
See Insight page 9
INSIGHT
Continued from page 10
SAHS softball
The Starfires already were one of the favorites to win their second sectional title in school history. After Monday night, they are the favorite.
Having finished two spots ahead of its closest rival to the north in the Class 2A Indiana Coaches of Girls Sports Association poll voting earlier in the day — 11th compared to 13th — South Adams went out and proved it deserved that position as it knocked off Adams Central 6-5. The game wasn’t that close most of the way, as the Starfires gradually built a 6-0 lead before holding off a Flying Jets rally in the seventh. The win earned them a share of the Allen County Athletic Conference title.
South Adams is a balanced team, with junior Katelin Augsburger giving it the kind of arm that can help hoist a trophy. In Monday’s win, she racked up 12 strikeouts to help take the pressure off of her defense.
Abby Myers and Augsberger each had a pair of RBIs against the Flying Jets. And those came just two days after junior Morgan Alberson hit her second home run of the season — a two-run walk-off shot — to complete a doubleheader sweep of Eastbrook
JCHS girls track
No team in the area has been more consistently successful at the sectional level as these Patriots.
Prior to finishing second to Yorktown last season, Jay County had won five consecutive titles. Most of those victories had come in blowout fashion. Prior to that streak, it had finished as the runner-up a couple of times in agonizingly-close fashion. (They fell short of the title by one-fifth of a point in 2009.)
Now the Patriots want to reclaim the trophy that eluded them last year, and on Friday night, they showed the formula they will follow in the attempt to do so. At the ACAC championships, they won fewer events (four) than runner-up South Adams (five) but were near the top in everything. If they didn’t win something, it was a sure thing that they were second or third. And they put two athletes in the top eight in 11 of 12 individual events.
In track, that’s a formula for success.
Every once in a while, there will be an individual athlete who carries the team on her back — Jordan McMillan racked up 38 points all by herself when JCHS won the 2010 sectional title — but most often it takes balance and depth.
The Patriots have it. And tonight they hope to have the sectional championship as well.
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