The wait is over

Editor’s note: With a void in sports, The Commercial Review will occasionally run past stories from key events in the area’s athletic history. This story, from Feb. 18, 2002, recounts the Jay County High School boys swim team winning the sectional title for the first time.

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The Patriots made sure the only thing to be decided Saturday was which team would finish in second place. They owned the championship.

Jay County dominated the sectional meet, winning its first title in the school’s 27-year history by racking up 315 points. Norwell finished a distant second with 188 points and Oak Hill was third with 181.5.

The Patriots’ coach of 27 years, Barry Weaver, was also voted sectional coach of the year by his peers.

What ensued was a giant celebration in which Weaver and assistant coach Jason Robbins, every team member, friends, parents, siblings, athletics director Brad Lindsay and even this reporter got tossed into the pool.

“I’m really excited, especially for the seniors,” said junior Caleb Bye. “They’ve been on the team the longest and they deserve it. It’s just a great feeling to know we finally have that sectional title now.”

“I’m so excited to get a team sectional,” said Kyle Weaver. I’m just so happy coach got it and I’m on the team that got it. We worked our butts off for this.”

“I even felt kind of dizzy after the meet, said Matt Glentzer. “It’s a great feeling.”

The final outcome was never in doubt as the Patriots opened the meet with a win in the 200-yard medley relay and closed with a victory in the 400-yard freestyle relay. They led wire-to-wire and will have seven athletes competing at the state meet this Friday and Saturday.

Weaver leads Jay County’s long list of state qualifiers as he will compete in four different swimming events when the team heads to Indianapolis this weekend. He is a member of both state-bound relay teams, and also won the 100-yard butterfly and had a fast enough second-place time in the 100-yard backstroke to reach the 32-man state field.

The junior made his best showing in the butterfly, setting new school, pool and meet records with a time of 53.78 seconds.

Weaver had no one to battle against in the final round after winning the preliminary round by six seconds over No. 2 seeded teammate Dustin Lee. The pair of juniors dominated the race with Weaver bringing down the records, and Lee slicing nearly three seconds off his preliminary time to finish second, joining the 50-second club for the first time in that event.

The butterfly should be the Patriots’ best chance at getting a swimmer through the state preliminaries into Saturday’s final round. Weaver is ranked 19th and will swim in the fastest heat Friday. The top 16 will move on to the finals.

“All I wanted to do at sectional was get a 53,” said Weaver. “I did that today. At state, I hope to get a 52. I was proud of my swim.

“I was also proud of Dustin Lee. He cut off a lot of time.”

Weaver also put on a show in the backstroke, knocking nearly a second off his preliminary time and almost catching Norwell’s Nathan Truex at the wall. The junior’s second-place time of 56.14 ranks him 26th for the state meet.

Lee finished fourth behind Weaver in that event.

Andrew Wells earned his trip to state in what was easily the most exciting 500-yard freestyle race of the season.

The senior trailed the entire way, making up ground on every turn, but never able to slide into the lead. He still trailed Bluffton’s Derek Edington after the 18th length of the pool, but roared ahead in the final 50 yards to win the race by nearly two seconds.

Wells said he had been battling with Edington since eighth grade. Last year Wells defeated his Bluffton rival in the 200-yard freestyle, but was out-touched at the wall in 500.

“Ever since then I said ‘He’s not going to beat me again,’” said Wells. “When I flipped that last 100 I said ‘I’m gonna win this. There’s no way I can lose this.’”

Bye came away with the other individual title for Jay County, dominating the diving from start to finish and joining Weaver in breaking school, pool and meet records in the process. He racked up 70 points on his final dive, an inward two somersaults in the tuck position, for a final score of 531.85.

The previous record came in 1997 by Muncie Central’s Ryan Fillman, who scored 530.85 points.

Early on in the competition, it seemed as if Bye would have trouble reaching his 500-point goal, let alone breaking a host of records. He had trouble on the board during his third dive, barely making his 2.5 rotations and scoring fours and fives.

Instead of continuing in a downward spiral, Bye hit his next two dives beautifully and carried a 44-point lead into the second round. He continued to dive consistently in the second round and then put himself over the top in the third.

He received a pair of 10s on his ninth dive, a reverse pike to put himself over the 400-point mark. The junior then snapped his personal best on his 10th dive and brought down the house with his record-breaking 11th and final dive.

“I was almost in horror,” said Bye of his third dive. “I was just trying to get it around. I was surprised I did.

“Last year I probably would have let that get to me. This year I said, ‘That’s just one dive and I have eight more to do.’ I couldn’t let it affect my other dives.”

Freshman Matt Peterson also dived well for Jay County, finishing 10th with a personal-best score of 263.55.

The winning relay teams each earned victories in dramatic fashion.

The victory in the 200-yard medley relay came as Ryne Fulton roared back on the freestyle leg of the race to take first place away from Norwell. The Knights had built a slim lead on Trevor Lesh’s breaststroke leg and Caleb Dann swam a dead heat with Adam Truex in the butterfly to keep pace.

Fulton found himself still slightly behind when he hit the water, but finished his leg nearly a second faster than his closest opponent to give the Patriots the victory. The win gave Fulton, Dann, Weaver and Derek Arnold their ticket to the state meet.

Jay County also had to come from behind to catch Norwell in its other relay victory. The Knights jumped out to a huge lead by putting their best swimmer, Nathan Truex, on the first leg.

Trailing by five seconds after the first 100 yards, the Patriots began their comeback. First Matt Glentzer did his job, erasing nearly all of the lead Truex built.

When Weaver dove in for the third leg he was just a half-second behind and by the time he had finished, the Jay County lead was four seconds. Caleb Dann finished things off, as the Patriots won the race with a time of 3:30.80, eight seconds faster than Norwell.

“When I saw Truex had such a big lead, I knew I had to catch up,” said Glentzer. “I lost my first relay and I didn’t want to lose another one. I knew Caleb and Kyle would do the rest.”

That loss came in the 200-yard freestyle relay in which South Adams’ Chip Habegger burst ahead of Fulton for the victory. The Patriots finished second.

Just as important to the win as all the victories was Jay County’s ability to put two swimmers in nearly every championship race.

The only event in which the Patriots did not have more than one swimmer was the 200-yard individual medley in which Dann broke the school record with a tremendous freestyle leg as he finished second.

Jay County had three swimmers in the final six of the 200-yard freestyle with Glentzer in second, Wells third and Brad Fisher fifth. Fisher also finished fourth in the 500-yard freestyle.

In the other two individual races Arnold finished third in the 100-yard breaststroke and Fulton was sixth, and Dann was fourth in the 100-yard freestyle with Glentzer fifth.

“It’s really awesome the way we stacked the races like that,” said Fisher. “When you think back to the beginning of swimming this season and now that we’re finally hear and do this, it’s awesome. It’s a really great experience.

“It’s sad to leave. I don’t want to leave. I’m gonna mss swimming with coach Weaver. Coach Weaver has been like a second dad for all of us. He’s been there through everything.”

They may be leaving, but now coach/dad Weaver has a sectional trophy to remember them by.