Small and mighty

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NEW HAVEN — They may be small in number, but they are indeed mighty.

The Starfires knew they had to be at their best in order to repeat.

No matter what event it seemed they competed, there were two Patriots earning points.

So the Stars had to finish as close to the top as they could.

Nine victories helped the cause. Addie Wanner had almost half of them.

Wanner was first in four events and Kallee Patch had two individual victories while also helping in two relay wins as the South Adams High School girls track team picked up nine first-place finishes Tuesday to repeat as Allen County Athletic Conference champions in the meet held at New Haven.

“It’s fun to win but man that wasn’t fun to go through,” said SAHS coach Clint Anderson, whose team has won three of the last four conference titles. “Holy cow. It’s just nerve racking. Jay County scores like twice in everything. It’s hard to keep up with that but thankfully we have some talented kids to throw out there and we were able to hold them off.”

South Adams totaled 156 points to win, and Jay County was 11 points behind in second. Woodlan totaled 79 points for third.

The Heritage boys repeated as champions as well with 166 points. Woodlan totaled 131 for second while South Adams had 73.5 for third. Jay County placed sixth with 47 points.

Wanner, a senior who has signed with Louisville to compete in the heptathlon, handled both hurdle and jumping events.

In the 100-meter hurdles, she set new track, conference and school records with her time of 14.72 seconds, besting her previous school mark by five-hundredths of a second. Jay County’s Breea Liette and Grace Saxman were second and fourth respectively.

In the 300 hurdles Wanner won in 50.41 seconds. This time Saxman was third and Liette fourth.

The Starfire senior had a distance of 16 feet, 5 inches, to win long jump, and cleared 5 feet, 2 inches, to take first in high jump.

“It definitely was not my best night looking at the numbers,” said Wanner, who qualified for the state finals as a junior in 100 hurdles, high jump and long jump. “I did enough to win all my events and my teammates showed out a lot. 

“We were seeded very well in a lot of our events. We have a very small team so it was good to know we could still pull this off with a few amount of girls.”

To be exact, the Starfires have a dozen girls, the second fewest out of any conference team.

Each of them had to step up.

Patch, a sophomore, left no doubt she was the best in the 1,600 run as she won in 5 minutes, 30.93 seconds, nearly eight seconds ahead of Jay County freshman runner-up Sophia Fugiett. Patch also won the 800 run in 2:25.2, more than seven seconds ahead of Jay County’s Kendra Muhlenkamp.

“She has worked extremely hard,” Anderson said of Patch. “Probably over the last 10 months she’s worked harder and been more committed than she ever has.

“She also has just got this fierceness. She wants to win.”

Patch joined Megan Miller, Eliza Harruff and Hadi Hawbaker to win the meet-opening 4x800 relay in 10:25.41, then teamed with sisters Isabel and Olivia Von Gunten and Miller to cap the championship with a victory in the 4x400 relay in 4:17.07.

Jay County was the runner-up in both relays.

Taylor Augsburger, a South Adams sophomore, and Starfire junior Shaelynn Bowman were first and second respectively in shot put. Augsburger won with a distance of 33 feet, 3 inches.

Jay County’s only two victories came from a pair of freshmen. Fugiett passed Harruff with 400 meters to go to win the 3,200 run in 12:34.58 for her first conference championship, and Kinsey Shannon held off Woodlan’s Addie Bayman to win the 400 run by 0.14 seconds in 60.87 seconds.

Lars In’t Groen won both the discus (147 feet, 11 inches) and shot put (49 feet, 6.5 inches) events, while Victor Vasquez passed Devin Schmenk of Heritage with 300 meters to go for a come-from-behind victory in the 1,600 run.

“He’s got high expectations for himself,” Anderson said of In’t Groen. “If he doesn’t win he feels like he not only let himself down but he let his team down. He takes a lot of pride in what he does. I know he’s got higher goals yet than just this here tonight. Pretty happy with him and the effort he’s put into it.”

Also scoring points for South Adams were Olivia Von Gunten (third – 400 dash, fourth – 100 dash), Isabel Von Gunten (seventh – 200 dash, seventh – 400 dash), Acacia Anderson (seventh – long jump), Calyssa Lehman (fourth – discus), Harruff (fourth – 1,600 run), Miller (sixth – 800 run) and Hawbaker (third – 3,200 run).

Scoring points for Jay County were Kendal Garringer (second – high jump), Calli Stigleman (second – 200 dash, third – 100 dash), Lucy Laux (third – long jump, seventh – 100 dash), Kendra Muhlenkamp (third – 1,600 run), Taylor Muhlenkamp (third – discus, seventh – shot put), Gwen Omstead (fifth – shot put, seventh – discus), Ashlyn Dow (sixth – 400 dash), Gabby Kunkler (seventh – 3,200 run) and Shannon (third – 200 dash).

South Adams boys who scored points individually were Clancy McIntire (third – 3,200 run), Drew Stutzman (seventh – 400 dash), Samuel Martinez (sixth – 800 run), Trey Lehman (sixth – high jump) and Vasquez (second – 800 run).

Jay County’s best finishes came from Skyler Myers and Gavin Randall, who were second in the 3,200 run and high jump respectively.

Other top-eight place winners for Jay County were Nathanael Day (sixth – 100 dash), Isaac Robbins (fifth – 110 hurdles, fifth – 300 hurdles), Noah Harris (sixth – 100 hurdles, seventh – 300 hurdles) and Tayler Smeltzer (seventh – 800 run).