Elite, repeat

MUNCIE — Elisa Parazzi somersaulted, threw her arms in the air and ran to celebrate with her teammates.

Kinsey Shannon looked questioningly at her coach while bending over, hands on knees, to catch her breath.

The reactions were different, the results the same. Both had won sectional championships.

Parazzi and Shannon each earned individual sectional titles Tuesday as they led the Jay County High School girls track team to a third-place finish in the meet at Delta.

The two victories combined with four runner-up finishes and two third-place efforts as the Patriots scored 99.5 points. (The top three competitors in each event advance to the regional meet.)

“We ran virtually as well as we could have run,” said JCHS coach Joe Imel. “Going into it, I was just trying to get as many girls as we could to regional. … I think the girls did a really good job today.”

Yorktown and Delta each won five events, with the former scoring 153.5 points to run away with the title while the host Eagles placed second with 113.5. Muncie Central was fourth in the 13-team field with 73 points.

Parazzi provided the first thrilling moment of the evening for JCHS shortly after dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” as it played over the public address system. Upon clearing the bar on her second attempt at 5 feet, 5 inches — Delta’s Rhian Cline, the only other jumper remaining, would then miss on her third try — she somersaulted across the pit, jumped out of it with both arms thrown in the air and feet kicked up and ran to her teammates.

She had much the same reaction a few minutes later, though minus the somersault, as she achieved a new career best on her third attempt at 5 feet, 6 inches. (In 2019, a jump of 5 feet, 6 inches, was good for fifth at the state finals.)

“It felt amazing,” said Parazzi, an exchange student from Italy who was also seventh in the long jump. Her best high jump prior to this season was 5 feet, 3 inches. “I wanted it for such a long time. When I cleared the bar, it was like, ‘Oh my God, I really did it.’”

While Parazzi knew exactly where she stood in her event, Shannon was unsure about her place in the 100-meter dash field. She had pulled back a bit in the preliminaries, cruising in with a time of 13.81 seconds that gave her the fifth seed and put her in lane two. So when she hustled her way down the track in the finals and crossed the finish line, she didn’t know if she had done enough to knock off the sprinters several lanes to her right.

An exhausted, questioning glance at coach Joe Imel confirmed that she had.

Shannon was the only runner to break the 13-second mark, finishing in 12.97 seconds to take the top spot ahead of Yorktown’s Brooke Miles (13.19). She and Delta’s Makayla Robles (3,200 run) were the only athletes to successfully defend their sectional titles from 2019. (The 2020 season was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.)

“My block was on point and it’s normally a little rough. That’s what probably helped me,” said Shannon, who was also second in the 400 dash and ran a blistering final leg of the 4x400 relay to bring the Patriots back to edge Yorktown for third place and the final regional berth. “I feel like I normally stand up too quick and I just kind of glided through the air it felt like.”

Senior Abby Benter earned Jay County’s only other runner-up finish on the track, posting a time of 49.11 in the 300 hurdles. Caitlyn Campbell of Winchester ran away with the sectional title in 46.96.

The Patriots throwers joined with Parazzi to give the team a strong day in the field events. Sophomore Gabi Bilbrey was the runner-up in the discus at 100 feet, 3 inches, trailing only Yorktown’s Gretchen Moore (103 feet, 10 inches). Kylie Klopfenstein launched the shot put 36 feet, 5 inches, to finish in the No. 2 spot behind Winchester’s Anastasia Von Strauss (38 feet, 3.5 inches).

“This year was our first year where we have a designated throws coach for boys and girls,” said Imel, referencing assistant coach Brian Miles. “And it has paid off. We’ve seen some big dividends, some gains with our throwers, both boys and girls.”

Sophia Fugiett, Molly Muhlenkamp, Willow Hardy and Lindy Wood opened the meet with a third-place finish in the 4x800 relay. Shea Bailey, Makinsey Murphy and Benter ran the first three legs of the 4x400 relay before Shannon rallied for the third-place finish.

The Patriots came up one spot short of a regional berth in four events. Placing fourth were Benter in the 100 hurdles, Fugiett in the 800 run, Bailey in the 200 dash and the team of Bralee VanSkyock, Natalie Wehrly, Murphy and Bailey in the 4x100 relay.

Also scoring points for JCHS were Wood (fifth – 3,200 run), Wehrly (fifth – 200 dash), Murphy (sixth – 300 hurdles), Cash Hollowell (seventh – 100 hurdles) and Bilbrey (eighth – shot put).