Eight advance

MUNCIE — In 2024, Ariel Beiswanger ran in the 4x100-meter relay team for the Patriots that advanced to the regional, but found herself just outside of a trip to Indianapolis as she placed fourth and fifth in her individual events.

In 2025, the sophomore broke through in her individual events, even claiming a sectional title of her own.

Beiswanger led the Jay County High School girls track team on Tuesday as it finished third at the IHSAA Sectional 12 meet hosted by Delta.

The Patriots qualified for the Regional 3 meet hosted by Carroll on May 27 in eight events, leading to 106 points for the third-place finish. They only trailed sectional champion Yorktown (152.5) and host Delta (129).

“That’s where I expected us to finish,” said JCHS coach Joe Imel. “I’m extremely pleased with everyone. We had a lot of young kids that did very well today. We had some seniors moving on – Jenna Dues in the high jump, Morgan DeHoff in the 4x1 and Jordyn Hutzler in the shot put – and I can’t say enough about their leadership these past couple seasons, especially this year as their senior year.”

Beiswanger led the way for the Patriots, qualifying for the regional in all four events and claiming the only sectional title. The 400-meter dash was a tight race with the top five finishers less than a step apart with only 50 yards remaining. Within the final 150 feet of the race, Beiswanger pulled ahead of the group to finish on top with a time of 1 minute, 3.41 seconds. Rachel Ward of Muncie Burris, who finished second by 0.38 seconds, was the last athlete to hold the lead before Beiwanger took over.

“I just realized that she wasn’t that far ahead of me and I could beat her, so I just pushed,” Beiswanger said. “I think I really just locked in today and didn’t get in my head as usual. I just went out and did it.”

Peyton Carpenter also punched her ticket to the regional with a third-place finish (1:04.21). She beat Randolph Southern’s Gracie Minnis by 0.37 seconds for the final spot.

In her other individual event, Beiswanger completed the 200 dash in 27.36 seconds, only trailing Delta’s Mia Bollinger (26.75).

Beiswanger was also on both the 4x100 and 4x400 relay teams that placed second to earn spots at the regional.

Beiswanger was joined by DeHoff, Dues and London Lloyd and they combined for a time of 52.60 seconds to qualify. The group finished behind Delta’s team by 2.06 seconds.

Brooklynn Byrum and Carpenter joined Lloyd and Beiswanger for the 4x400 relay. Their time of 4:19.35 placed behind Yorktown’s 4:17.80.

Similar to the 400 dash, the 800-meter run had a dramatic finish.

All through the first lap and 300 meters of the second, Yorktown's Casey Gifford paced right in front of Byrum and AnnMarie Gibson of Wapahani. As the trio rounded the final curve to the last 100 meters, Byrum made a move to the outside and successfully passed Gifford to claim the top spot.

But just as soon as Byrum held the lead, it was taken away as Gibson rounded even further outside and surpassed the JCHS freshman. Gibson finished first with a time of 2:28.04, Byrum followed with a 2:28.67 and Gifford claimed the final qualifying spot with a 2:30.30.

“We were all going as fast as we could, all three of us,” Byrum said. “I tried to get around Yorktown, managed to do that. Then (Gibson) just came out of nowhere and she just took off.”

Hutzler and Dues  picked up the other individual qualifications for the Patriots. Hutzler finished second in the shot put with a mark of 33 feet, 9.5 inches. (Mairin Gesler of Yorktown earned the sectional title with a throw of 36 feet, 0.5 inches.) Dues finished as part of a four-way tie for second place in the high jump at 4 feet, 10 inches. Glory Ellis of Union had the initial tiebreaker by clearing the height on her first try, while Dues beat out Adelaide Zoller of Delta and Yorktown’s Caroline Caward, both of which made it over the bar on the final attempt. (Winchester’s Lilyanna Mayberry won the event with a height of 5 feet.)

Jay County finished fourth in three events and are awaiting callbacks to see if they will be making the trip to Fort Wayne as well.

Maria Hemmelgarn only cleared the 8-foot mark in the pole vault, while Delta’s Grier Backus and Zoller claimed the final spots with vaults of 8 feet, 6 inches.

Ava May ran a 12:56.89 in the 3,200 run, coming up 7.75 seconds short of the final qualifying spot, which went to Ella Taylor of Wapahani.

May was also on the 4x800 relay team that finished fourth. She was joined by Paityn Wendel, Jessie Homan and Byrum and they combined for a time of 10:31.62. They fell short of third place by 4.44 seconds.

Other scores came from:

•Jessie Homan in the 3,200 run (fifth)

•Hutzler in the discus (fifth)

•Mya Kunkler in the pole vault (sixth), the high jump (sixth) and the 300 hurdles (seventh)    

•Lloyd in the 200 dash (sixth)

•DeHoff in the 100 hurdles (seventh), the 300 hurdles (eighth) and the long jump (eighth)

•May in the 1,600 run (seventh)

•Carpenter in the long jump (seventh) 

“As a day, that’s a pretty good day,” Imel said. “Everybody did what they were supposed to do.”