Colpaert swims to two top seeds

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As a junior, Zach Colpaert was one of the many trying to chase down Delta senior Andrew Torres.

In his final season, Colpaert is the one to fend off the other competitors.

Colpaert, a South Adams High School senior, earned two top seeds Thursday at the boys swimming sectional preliminaries at Jay County.

“Just a pretty good day of swimming,” said Colpaert, who was the fastest in both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events with times of 22.2 and 49.73 seconds respectively.

“Going into Saturday he sort of has a decent lead in both of those but definitely there is room for improvement,” said SAHS coach Andy Lehman, who has swimmers in the championship heat of four other events as sectional resumes Saturday with diving preliminaries at 9 a.m. with swimming and diving finals slated for 1 p.m.

Delta, which is the three-time defending sectional champion, leads the way with four top seeds.

Jay County will compete in the finals of six events. The top eight seeds advance to the championship heat Saturday with those placing ninth through 16 competing in the consolation finals.

“With the kids that we have on this team and where we are athletically right now I think we positioned ourselves about as good as I could have ever hoped or expected,” said JCHS coach Matt Slavik.

“That is a great feeling as a coach knowing your kids are busting their hind ends all year long (and it’s) coming back to reward them.

“It may not be winning races but it’s certainly making finals.”

Torres — who went on to finish fourth in the state in the freestyle sprint races — was a far cry faster than the rest of the sectional field last season. As a result, Colpaert finished third in both races.

Since then he’s used that to drive him to be the favorite, and it’s worked.

“I knew last year coming in that I wasn’t going to probably beat Torres because he was pretty fast,” said Colpaert, who admitted he didn’t have the best turn in the 50 freestyle nor did he get the time he wanted in the 100 freestyle. “It’s motivated (me) to use his time as a benchmark to go after. That has really helped me in both my events to push myself.”

Teammate Trey Lehman will also compete in the 50 freestyle finals after prevailing over Jon Bergdall of Adams Central in a swim-off for the No. 8 seed.

The Allen County Athletic Conference rivals had prelim times of 24.74 seconds, and Lehman shaved time off that in the swim-off to win in 24.35 seconds.

“That was exciting,” Andy Lehman said. Bergdall had a time of 24.81 seconds and will be seeded ninth. “Poor Trey, shortly thereafter he was feeling a little ill but I was glad he was able to get out of that.”

Starfire junior Kam Yoder will compete in the finals in two events Saturday. He is the third seed in the 100 butterfly at 56.3 seconds, with Delta’s Brady Samuel the top seed at 54.66 seconds. Yoder had a time of 2 minutes, 15.24 seconds, in the 200 individual medley. Ben Moorman of Burris is seeded No. 1 at 2:07.34.

Trey Lehman, Curtis Sprunger, Yoder and Colpaert are seeded third in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:36.82 — Delta is two seconds faster as the top seed. The same quartet is fourth in the 200 medley relay (1:49.55), of which Bluffton (1:47.13) is seeded first.

“Overall the team, even though placing-wise might not show everything, time-wise we did really well and we swam our hearts out tonight,” Andy Lehman said.

Jay County senior Garrett Campbell is seeded in the top eight for both of his individual events. He had a time of 52.74 seconds in the 100 freestyle for fifth, and will be eighth in the 100 backstroke at 1:02.39. Bluffton’s Walker Leas is the top seed at 57.91 seconds.

Tayler Smeltzer finished as the seventh seed in the 100 butterfly with his time of 58.94 seconds, and Chase McFarland had a time of 5:36.23 for the No. 8 seed in the 500 freestyle. Daniel Ginder of Delta is the top seed at 4:47.23.

Jay County’s 200 freestyle relay team of Skyler Myers, Smeltzer, McFarland and Campbell is the fourth seed in 1:37, and the same group is seventh in the 400 freestyle in 3:45.84.

The Patriots’ 200 medley relay team of Mitchell Brown, Ben Strausburg, Griffin Mann and Alex LeMaster will be 10th.

Former Jay County Patriot and current Burris Owl Jason Minnich is seeded in the top four for both of his individual events. He is third in the 100 freestyle at 51.50 seconds, and fourth in the 200 freestyle with a tie of 1:54.81.

He swam the freestyle leg of the 200 medley relay team that will be seeded second (1:48.93) behind Bluffton, and anchored the No. 2 seed 400 freestyle relay which had a time of 3:30.56. Adams Central is the top seed by slightly more than a second.

Swimming in the consolation finals for Jay County will be Myers (10th – 50 freestyle, 11th – 100 freestyle), LeMaster (11th – 100 breaststroke, 14th – 200 freestyle), McFarland (12th – 100 backstroke) and Mann (14th – 100 breaststroke).

South Adams senior Brayden Collingsworth will swim in the consolation finals of both the 200 and 500 freestyle races as the No. 11 seed. Trey Lehman is 10th in the 100 backstroke, and the Starfire 400 freestyle relay is also 10th.