Patriots drop times in dual win

The Patriots are nearly back at full strength.

They’ve been training hard, too.

The results are showing.

Jay County High School’s boys and girls swim teams nearly had a perfect night with career-best times in picking up wins Thursday against the Coldwater Cavaliers and Celina Bulldogs in a triple dual meet.

“I’m pleased with the way things are going at this point in the season,” said JCHS coach Matt Slavik, whose team hosts the diving portion of the Jay County Invitational at 6 p.m. tonight and with the swimming part Saturday. “We had a lot of highlights for tonight.

“Top to bottom there were very few exceptions of kids dropping times. For us it’s just a great night. It’s a good interstate rivalry. It’s fun to have them over here.”

Jay County’s boys defeated Coldwater 119-43 and Celina 133-21. The girls topped Coldwater 108-77 and Celina by a 143-40 margin.

Coldwater swept Celina, with the girls winning 121-53 and the boys getting a 60-24 victory.

Knowing his team had a numbers advantage against the Cavaliers and Bulldogs, Slavik threw some of his boys in their off events. Griffin Mann, who is primarily a breaststroker, got wins in both the 500-yard freestyle and 100 backstroke. He had a time of 6 minutes, 1.83 seconds, to win the former, and beat the field in the latter in 1:10.69.

Earlier in the meet, he swam the freestyle leg of the 200 medley relay team that included Nick Lyons, Ralph Link and Kyle Sanders for a win in 1:53.77. He also teamed with Wyatt Kunkler, Link and Sanders to win the 200 freestyle relay in 1:42.73.

Sanders, who is generally a freestyle sprinter, won the 200 individual medley in 2:17.55 for a new career-best time. Konner Sommers, primarily a butterfly swimmer, won the 50 freestyle in 26.84 seconds.

Josh Monroe cut nearly two seconds off his career-best time to win the 200 freestyle in 2:17.63, and trimmed four seconds off his 100 butterfly time in finishing third.

Juan Pablo Wiggins, Lyons, Monroe and Kunkler had a time of 4:14.94 to win the 400 freestyle relay.

Elayna Paro was the lone dual winner for the JCHS girls. She set a new career-best time of 2:21.5 to take first in the 200 freestyle relay, then back that up by winning the 100 backstroke in 1:20.59.

Paro also joined Mara Bader, Ashlyn Dow and Eliza Bader for a 400 freestyle relay win in 3:56.07. Dow, who also won the 50 freestyle in 25.35 seconds, made up a six-second deficit to Coldwater during the third leg of the relay, giving Eliza Bader a head-to-head race with Macy May for the final 100 yards.

“Eliza held her off,” Slavik said. The Patriot relay team won by five hundredths of a second. “(Dow and Bader) both had their fastest splits of the year.”

Eliza Bader (200 IM – 2:21.9) and Mara Bader (100 butterfly – 1:04.7) had individual victories. They joined Rieley Brewster and Dow to win both the 200 medley relay (1:54.32) and 200 freestyle relay (1:43.63).

Lauren Brewster scored 182.95 points to take first out of eight divers, and Rieley Brewster had a time of 1:00.01 to win the 100 freestyle.

Slavik expects the Patriots to be at full strength for its invitational this weekend, marking the first time in a couple weeks they’ve had everyone available. The Bader sisters missed some time because of having to quarantine, and some others were out with other illnesses.

Still, Slavik commended the rest of the team for stepping up when it was shorthanded.

“I think this team showed some resiliency,” he said. “They don’t do a lot of talking. They work hard as any team I’ve ever had and they’ve been having a lot more fun.

“That’s all they can do right now. I probably should take a few pointers from the kids and just stop and enjoy what we do have. This was almost a season that never was. We should be thankful that we have the opportunity to be here and the kids have the opportunity to compete.”