Patriots split on senior night

Seniors helped carry the girls to their first win of the season.

The boys closed the gap with a team that typically left them in its wake.

Jay County High School’s swim teams split a meet with sectional rival Norwell Knights on Tuesday.

“I’m pretty stoked with how everything turned out,” said JCHS coach Matt Slavik. “Girls get their first win. Boys (are) making every meet closer and closer and improving on where we set the bar for the last couple years.”

Three seniors had their hand in seven of the JCHS girls’ eight event wins on their way to a 154-145 victory against the Knights, while the boys lost 151-130.

“The boys are getting stronger and stronger,” Slavik said. “We’re getting closer and closer to some of these teams that a couple years ago were blowing us out, so everything’s moving in the right direction as well from a team standpoint.”

Jay County’s girls kicked off the night with a win in the 200-yard medley relay on the efforts of seniors Lilli Clemmons, Ashlyn Dow and Eliza Bader along with sophomore Mara Bader. The quartet had a time of 1 minute, 57.98 seconds, for first place. Later in the meet the same four teamed to beat the field in the 200 freestyle relay with their time of 1:47.72.

Eliza Bader and Dow, two of a dozen seniors who were honored at the end of the night, each had two individual wins along with the younger Bader.

Eliza’s first victory came in the 50 freestyle as she touched the wall in 25.49 seconds, almost 2 seconds ahead of Clemmons. She then ended the 100 backstroke in first with a 1:03.61 mark on the clock.

Dow’s wins were in the 200 individual medley (2:25.66) and 100 breaststroke (1:12.42). Mara Bader picked up first-place honors in the 200 freestyle (2:13.99) and 100 butterfly races (1:06.7).

Clemmons also took first in the 100 freestyle with her time of 1:01.32

“As always, we have the girls that are consistent day in and day out,” Slavik said.

Lauren Brewster scored 142.8 in diving for the Patriots’ other victory on the night.

“All the girls are swimming faster than they were last year at this time,” Slavik said.

Kyle Sanders had the best individual performance for the JCHS boys in terms of placing. He was runner-up in both the 200 IM and 100 butterfly. Also taking second were Wyatt Kunkler (100 freestyle), Josh Monroe (500 freestyle) and Griffin Mann (100 breaststroke).

Slavik especially noted the performance of Kunkler dropping eight seconds off his career best in the 200 IM (2:33.44) and joining the 50-second club in the 100 freestyle (58.86). He also mentioned freshman Luke Vormohr improving his 100 freestyle time by 20 seconds and his 100 breaststroke by six seconds.

“The boys, we’ve got to get a little rust off and then get them to racing,” Slavik said. “You can tell the just need to get a few more meets in and get some races in, but training wise I think they’re there.”

But Thursday was about the seven girls and five boys who are in their final season swimming as Patriots.

“They’re kind of like ‘The Odd Couple’ when you look across the board of who was have as seniors,” Slavik joked. “We really hit every spectrum of kids that you can stereotype, and they all come together and they treat this like one big family. It’s just a super special group.

“This year with this graduating class we take a pretty big hit, not only numbers wise but none of them are super outspoken but they all work extremely hard and they all prove their salt when they’re working at practice and then coming out in the meets and how they support one another.”