JCHS girls edge Eagles

Oak Hill threatened to hand the Patriots their first lost. But the home team came through in the final event.

Mara Bader, Rieley Brewster, Erica Hathaway and Lilli Clemmons teamed to take the meet-ending 400-yard freestyle relay by nearly six seconds to secure the Jay County High School girls swim team a 152-147 victory over the Oak Hill Golden Eagles.

The Patriot boys fell, 194-113.

The JCHS girls (3-0) held a slim three-point lead heading into the final event of the evening, and Hathaway took control in the 400 freestyle relay. She outpaced Ashtin McDvitt of Oak Hill by more than a second on the opening leg and the Patriots continued to pull away for the win in 4 minutes, 13.78 seconds, to complete a sweep of the relays. The Eagles’ runner-up relay team was nearly six seconds slower.

Juniors Eliza Bader and Ashlyn Dow set the tone for Jay County in individual events. Bader bridged the break by posting winning times of 25.31 seconds in the 50 freestyle and 1:00.74 in the 100 butterfly. Dow followed by taking the 100 freestyle by nearly seven seconds in 58.56 to give the Patriots three consecutive wins and later claimed the top spot in the 100 breaststroke in 1:10.72.

Hathaway finished in 2:10.58 to win the 200 freestyle, and Clemmons picked up her first victory of the year in the 100 backstroke in 1:11.28.

Eliza Bader, Brewster, Hathaway and Dow opened the evening with a win by more than 10 seconds in the 200 medley relay as they finished in 2:00.82. Dow and Clemmons later joined the Bader sisters for a time of 1:47.47 in the 200 freestyle relay that bested Oak Hill by just under eight seconds.

Jay County’s boys (0-3) got individual victories from Griffin Mann (1:08.4) in the 100 breaststroke and Kyle Sanders (55.23) in the 100 freestyle. Chase McFarland and Damian Hicks joined Mann and Sanders to post a winning time of 1:43.19 in the 200 freestyle relay.