SA wins title; Jay takes 2nd

For the last two seasons, strong Starfire squads found themselves chasing Jay County. They came close enough at the 2016 sectional to smell victory, but not to taste it.

That changed this year.

Senior Ashton Klopp capped a standout day by bringing home a victory on the final leg of the 400-yard freestyle relay Saturday at JCHS, allowing the South Adams High School girls swimmers to savor a sectional championship for the first time in since 2001.

“It was pretty exciting. I had to hold back tears a little bit,” said Klopp, who won the 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly while anchoring both of the SAHS winning relays. “There’s no words to describe how we feel right now.”

“It feels so good, just because we’ve worked so hard the past couple years, and last year at sectional we got beat by seven points and it was so nerve-wracking,” added SAHS senior Caroline Kloepper. “It’s just so exciting to see all that hard work pay off. It’s so great.”

The Starfires had just an eight-point lead with one event to go, but the final relay win lifted them to a total of 362 points for the title. They will swim at next weekend’s state finals in five races.

Jay County, which was third for much of the day before surging thanks to a win in the 200 freestyle relay and a sweep of the top three places in the breaststroke, took second with 344 points and earned state berths in three events. Two of those came from junior Alex Bader, who won the 100 breaststroke in record-breaking fashion and claimed the top spot in the 50 freestyle.

“I am extremely impressed with how our girls responded … how they swam,” said JCHS coach Matt Slavik, whose team was coming off of back-to-back titles but knew it had an uphill climb to continue that run. “They showed a lot of heart and determination. It was a great day today.”

Delta was third with 318, followed by Muncie Central (275) and Norwell (237), which got a pair of state berths from freshman Alyssa Cyrus. The top swimmer in each event earns a trip to the state finals.

Again the most dominant effort came from Jay County in the 100 breaststroke.

With no one in the pool close to challenging her, Bader made the record books her competitor. She came out on top, breaking her own school standard by more than a half second as she won in 1 minute, 5.2 seconds.

Patriot sophomore Vivienne Kunkler followed in second in 1:11.02, with senior teammate Jamie Valentine right behind her in 1:11.28 ahead of South Adams’ Audrey Burson.

“When I turned around I was super excited,” said Bader, whose previous school record was 1:05.84. “I didn’t feel like I was going that fast. And then when I saw that Vivienne and Jamie got second and third, that just made the feeling so much better.”

But moments later, Klopp and her Starfire teammates secured the team glory. The final race of the afternoon was never really in doubt, with Ashley LeFever staking South Adams to a lead it would never relinquish. Brette Klopp and Olivia Von Gunten extended the advantage, and Ashton Klopp surged to the wall with a winning time of 3:45.31 to beat runner-up Norwell by a full length of the pool.

Ashton Klopp led the celebration, throwing her right arm in the arm and then smacking the water after she turned around to see her team’s winning time.

“It was very exciting,” said SAHS coach Andy Lehman, whose team overcame a disqualification in the 200 freestyle relay in Thursday’s preliminaries. “We knew it was going to be a tough meet all day, but we knew it was definitely possible. … The girls are excited. They’re pumped.”

Ashley LeFever came up with the other individual state berth for SAHS, winning the 100 freestyle in 54.11. Burson, LeFever and the Klopp twins also took the top spot with a time of 1:50.65 in the 200 medley relay ahead of Jay County (Elizabeth McDowell, Bader, Kunkler and Valentine).

In addition to her record-breaking breaststroke effort, Bader easily outpaced the field in the 50 freestyle. She won in 24.12 with LeFever following in second, and then joined Erica Hathaway, Elizabeth McDowell and Kunkler to take in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:44.7.

The Starfires’ victory came thanks in large part to stacking swimmers in the championship heats. Brette Klopp, Olivia Von Gunten and Burson went two-three-five in the 200 individual medley, and Kloepper (fourth) and Isabel Von Gunten (sixth) followed LeFever in the 50 freestyle.

Kloepper also trailed Ashton Klopp with a fourth-place finish in the 100 butterfly, and Olivia Von Gunten and Riley Thompson were second and fifth respectively in the 500 freestyle. Brette Klopp was the runner-up in the 100 backstroke, Thompson took fifth in the 200 freestyle and Hadi Hawbaker placed seventh in the 100 freestyle.

Jay County had one second-place individual finish as McDowell followed Ashton Klopp in the 100 butterfly. She was also fourth in the 100 backstroke.

Freshman Erica Hathaway finished third in both distance freestyle events, with Kaitlyn Dow behind her in seventh in the 500 freestyle and eighth in the 200 freestyle. Jenna Dunfee was eighth in both the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke.

Also in the top eight for the Patriots were Kunkler in fifth in the 100 freestyle, Samantha Link in sixth in diving and Valentine in eighth in the 100 butterfly.

Also scoring for the Patriots were Mackenzie Knisley (ninth - diving) and twins Emma James (12th - 200 IM) and Hannah James (14th - 500 freestyle).

“I think everybody that swam today deserves credit,” said Slavik. “Every one of these kids, I asked them all to move up one spot. Just about all of them did.”

Adding points for South Adams were Hannah Neuenschwander (12th - 200 freestyle, 14th - 100 butterfly) and Isabel Von Gunten (10th - diving).