#4PEAT!

The Patriots walked onto the deck Saturday with “#4PEAT” written on the inside of their biceps.

Then they flexed their sectional muscles, winning five of the first six events.

And they added two more titles to walk out with the trophy to back up the inscription.

Jay County High School’s girls swim team spent the bulk of the sectional meet celebrating as it earned its fourth consecutive sectional title by 39 points over the Norwell Knights.

“Amazing,” said senior Lilli Clemmons, who was part of the Patriots’ winning 200-yard freestyle relay team. “To be a part of this team for four years and to consecutively win four sectional meets is just an amazing feeling. We got here as a team and now we get to go to state and I’m very excited.”

“I’ve been swimming with these three girls for 10, 12 years,” added fellow senior Rieley Brewster, referencing teammates Ashlyn Dow, Eliza Bader and Clemmons standing next to her. “For us to make history like this is amazing. I feel so honored to be a part of this team.”

Jay County won seven of 12 events as it racked up 381 points to lead the 13-team field. No other team earned more than one victory, as Norwell followed with 342 points and Muncie Central was a distant third with 250.

It marked the Patriots' fourth consecutive title and sixth overall, with all of them coming in the last seven years.

“As much as we want to look at swimming as an individual sport, this is truly a team, truly a family,” said JCHS coach Matt Slavik, whose team has also won four consecutive Allen County Athletic Conference titles. “And they push each other. They pick each other up. … They went out there for each other, and it came down to that. …

“They did it as a team for the last four years.”

Winchester’s Ella Baldwin, who trains with the Patriots, earned a state berth with a victory in the 100-yard backstroke.

The winner of each swimming event advances to the state finals while the top four divers will compete in the Hamilton Southeastern regional Tuesday.

Jay County went into the day with six No. 1 seeds and held them all while also adding a championship from sophomore Mara Bader in the 200 individual medley. She entered the day as the No. 3 seed for the event after trailing Norwell’s top-seeded Ella Krug by 2.73 seconds in Thursday’s preliminaries, but it ended up being a different Knight who posed the biggest challenge to Bader.

After Bader took the early lead, Norwell’s Sarah Mahnensmith put together a strong backstroke leg to take a half-second lead. But Bader needed just 25 yards of the breaststroke to reel Mahnensmith in and then pulled away for a win in 2 minutes, 19.6 seconds.

“I was really excited because I knew I had to step it up and I knew I could go faster and I knew I could beat them,” said Bader, who erased a 2.53-second deficit to win the same event in the 2020 sectional meet. “So I was just really happy with the time I did and what the outcome was.”

The rest of Jay County’s wins were never in doubt, with the Bader sisters, Dow and Brewster dominating the opening 200 medley relay by nearly 10 seconds in 1:50.1. Clemmons, Dow and the Baders later won the 200 freestyle relay by more than seven seconds with their time of 1:41.61.

Eliza Bader and Dow each added two individual wins over swimmers they practice with every day.

Bader first fended off Union City’s Elly O’Connor, who like Baldwin trains with the Patriots, for a victory in the 50 freestyle in 24.43. She came back after the intermission to post a time of 57.82 to win the 100 butterfly with Baldwin in second place and Brewster third.

Dow then rolled to a first-place time of 53.44 in the 100 freestyle with O’Connor again as the runner-up. And in the 100 breaststroke, long a signature event for JCHS, Dow (1:06.68) and Bader (1:09.24) posted a one-two finish.

“Ashlyn needed to be in that 1:06 range,” said Slavik of the senior who holds the Patriots' top seed in the state finals at No. 23 in the breaststroke. (For a state preview story, see Thursday’s edition of The Commercial Review.) “She was focused on trying to be seeded decent next weekend … It will give her a legit shot to make it back Saturday.

“From the time she split out a 27 in that medley relay, I knew she was on to great things today. Every time she stepped on the block she approached it with confidence.”

In the diving competition, which was contested Friday night, Natalie Wehrly of the Patriots earned a regional berth by placing fourth with 228.65 points. She trailed champion Jocelyn Mercier (305.5) of Burris, Brianna Cook (304.45) of Adams Central and Marlee Wenger (249.2) of Norwell.

Brewster added another third-place finish in the 100 backstroke while Clemmons was fifth in both the 50 freestyle and 100 backstroke. Elayna Paro finished sixth in the 500 freestyle and eighth in the 200 freestyle while Hannah Laux took seventh in both the 200 IM and 100 butterfly. Zion Beiswanger added an eighth-place finish in the 200 IM.

Other victories Saturday went to Bluffton’s Aubrey Pulver in the 200 freestyle, Delta’s Hayden Armstrong in the 500 freestyle and Norwell in the 400 freestyle relay.

Scoring points for the Patriots in consolation races were Emily Dues (10th – 100 freestyle; 14th – 100 backstroke) and Beiswanger (11th – 100 breaststroke).