Faster times cap swim season

The Patriots got faster in a majority of their races.

In most cases, though, it wasn’t enough to climb in the standings.

Jay County High School’s top effort was fourth place in a pair of races as the host school placed fifth out of 11 teams in Saturday’s sectional meet.

The Patriots, who improved times from preliminaries in 11 of 14 races but picked up better placings in only three, scored 179 points. They were 13 behind fourth-place Muncie Central and seven ahead of sixth-place Blackford.

“I was extremely pleased with how we wound up today,” said JCHS coach Matt Slavik, whose team was also fifth a year ago. “I’m proud of our boys. Every one of them swam well today. Most of our times were best times.”

Delta (427) outscored Norwell by 80 points to earn its sixth consecutive sectional championship, winning seven events in the process. Bluffton was third with 322 points.

The meet also saw two sectional and pool records broken, including Delta’s Braden Samuels swimming the second fastest 100-yard freestyle race in the state on sectional weekend in 45.36 seconds. He broke the 2017 record of 46.24 held by fellow Eagle Andrew Torres and will be the No. 2 seed for the state finals behind Carmel’s Griffin Hadley (45.06).

Jack Ringger of Bluffton also obliterated sectional and pool records by taking the top spot in the 100 breaststroke in 58.98. He surpassed the 11-year-old mark of 1:00.54 held by Dan Proctor of Muncie Central.

Junior Griffin Mann recorded the top individual finish for JCHS as he improved from Thursday’s preliminaries by 0.67 seconds in the 100-yard breaststroke but slipped one spot to fourth in 1 minute, 05.72 seconds. He was also the only Patriot in a championship heat to move up from the preliminaries climbing from seventh to sixth in the 50 freestyle in 23.39.

“He went crazy today on his freestyles,” said Slavik. “He split out his breaststroke in the relay faster than he’s ever gone, came back, swam the 50 freestyle, dropped it down to a 23 … So he nailed that.”

Chase McFarland, Kyle Sanders, Reid Claycomb and Mann placed fourth in the 200-yard medley relay in 1:46.49. They also posted a time of 1:36.88 for fifth in the 200 freestyle relay.

McFarland, a senior, closed his career with a pair of individual fifth-place finishes. He had times of 58.48 in the 100 backstroke and 2:00.11 in the 200 freestyle.

Sanders, a sophomore, placed sixth in the 100 butterfly in 1:00.01 and eighth in the 50 freestyle in 24.09. And Justice Murphy added the other top-eight finish, scoring 244 points for eighth in diving.

Freshman Josh Monroe and sophomore Konner Sommers were each able to improve by a couple of positions over Thursday’s preliminaries. Each jumped two places, with Monroe taking 12th in the 500 freestyle in 5:54.68 and Sommers 13th in the 100 butterfly in 1:05.68.

Ralph Link placed 13th in the 100 breaststroke, Monroe placed 14th in the 200 individual medley and Nico Minnich took 16th in the 100 butterfly. The team of Sam Crump, Juan Pablo Wiggins, Monroe and Link was 10th in the 400 freestyle relay.