Sectional preview

OSSIAN — Matt Slavik felt Norwell would be the team most likely to take the tournament trophy from his Patriots.

Saturday’s season opener provided a preview of that potential sectional showdown.

With its typically strong breaststroke effort, Jay County High School’s girls swim team rallied to the lead at the Norwell Invitational only to have the host Knights come back to claim the title in the final event.

While the Patriots won the meet-ending 400-yard freestyle relay, Norwell took second and fourth place in the event to finish off its 223.5-point effort. That left JCHS in second place with 208.

“Norwell has a lot of talent,” said Slavik, who is in his 11th season coaching Jay County. “They had good swims. We did exactly what we had to do (in the final event), they just managed to come in that (second and fourth) spot. So hats off to Norwell.

“It was a good battle. … We came darn close. We were a half a point ahead going into the 400 relay.”

The Knights failed to win a single event, but took two of the top four places in a pair of relays and used their overall depth to walk away with the championship trophy. Oak Hill finished third in the 12-team field with 180 points. (Winchester’s Ella Baldwin, who trains with JCHS, single-handedly out-pointed the entire Bellmont squad to claim 11th place for the Golden Falcons.)

The Patriots were ninth in the opening 200 medley relay, leaving them chasing a deficit as Norwell placed second and third in the event. They came roaring back behind an experienced pair of juniors.

Eliza Bader and Ashlyn Dow, both 2019 state qualifiers, combined for three consecutive victories, with Bader bridging the break in the meet. She first fought off Oak Hill’s Taylor King to win the 50 freestyle by 0.17 seconds in a time of 25.47 and came back after the intermission to dominate the 100 butterfly in 1:01.05.

Dow then took the torch, out-swimming Angola’s Taylor Clemens by exactly one second with her first-place time of 58.05 in the 100 freestyle.

And after Mara Bader, Erica Hathaway, Eliza Bader and Dow posted a time of 1:47.93 to take the 200 freestyle relay by more than five seconds — the same group would later win the 400 freestyle relay in 4:00.16 — the breaststroke vaulted the Patriots into the lead. Dow won the event, which has been a JCHS strength for years, in 1:12.93 and Mara Bader placed third with her time of 1:14.13.

“We’re blessed to have breaststrokers. We’ve had them for a long time now,” said Slavik. “I don’t know how many meets I’ve talked about over the years where … it’s back-and-forth all the way and then breaststroke comes along and we’re one-two, one-three. It seems to be our standard operating procedure.”

The Patriots had three swimmers in the top 10 in the sectional in the breaststroke in five of the last six years, including a top-three sweep in 2017. The only year in that span that they failed to do so was 2016, when they had a swimmer disqualified while the other two claimed first and second.

Mara Bader added a runner-up effort in the 200 individual medley (2:27.93) in her high school debut, and senior Erica Hathaway placed second in the 200 freestyle (2:13.65) and third in the 500 freestyle ( 6:11.40).

Rieley Brewster recorded top-10 efforts in a pair of events as well, placing seventh in the 100 backstroke and ninth in the 100 freestyle. Hannah James placed 10th in the 200 freestyle and 15th in the 500 freestyle, and Elayna Paro was 15th in the 200 individual medley.

Slavik, whose team was without juniors Lilli Clemmons and Kelly Strausburg, also complimented several of his swimmers who cut significant time Saturday. He noted Emily Dues, who recorded career-best times in the both the 50 freestyle and 200 freestyle, and Kearsten Myers, who cut 26 seconds in the 500 freestyle.

“That’s a much-needed help,” he said. “We’re able to have a third legit 500 freestyler. I think that was big for us.”