Consistent Jay tops Bearcats (02/09/06)

The Patriots are consistent.

Anyone who saw the Jay County gymnastics team’s victory over Delta Monday got a good idea of what was on tap for Wednesday night. The Patriots posted the exact same score — 99.475 — for a victory over the Muncie Central Bearcats (75.00).

“The good thing about having two home meets this week was we got to see a few different judges, and now we can take those sheets and compare what each different judge saw,” said JCHS coach Kristin Millspaugh. “We can take those things as suggestions for the next two practices leading up to the conference.”

Jay County will complete it’s three-meet week Saturday when it competes in the Olympic Athletic Conference championships at Connersville at noon.

Wednesday’s final lead-in to the OAC meet was typical for the Patriots as Hannah Williams won all four events. She was the all-around champion with her third-best score of the season and her career of 36.725.

Williams scored a 9.4 on the floor exercise, a 9.175 on the balance beam and a 9.15 on the vault. Her 9.0 on the uneven parallel bars was her best of the season and only the second time in her career scoring a 9.0 or higher on the event.

“She definitely has more endurance than she did,” said Millspaugh. “I feel comfortable when she starts her bar routine that she’s going to be able to finish it now.”

Endurance is now a factor for Erika Hunt, who joined Lacey Thornburg to account for second and third places on the vault, bars and beam.

Hunt, who suffered an ankle sprain Jan. 12, was second on the opening event with an 8.25 on the vault. She added third-place scores of 7.6 on bars and 7.55 on beam.

She also competed on the floor for the first time since her injury and included a full twist at the end of her opening tumbling pass.

“I think endurance is a big thing,” said Millspaugh. “And then that was only the second full that she’d done since she got hurt. She did one in warm-up and one in the meet. And it still hurts her quite a bit.”

Thornburg finished second on both the bars and beam with identical 7.7s. She added a third-place 8.0 on the vault.

Jenny Buckland took second on the floor with an 8.15, and Kristin Brown was third with a 7.8.

Kristen McKinley was the only Central gymnast to break Jay County’s stronghold on the top three, tying Thornburg for third on vault.

Millspaugh said she felt her team’s routines were better Wednesday than in Monday’s victory over Delta, but there is still plenty to be done. She said a lot of the work before the conference meet will be to clean things up, especially bar dismounts.

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She hopes it will be enough for a second straight OAC crown. Connersville had won seven in a row and 14 of 15 before the Patriots broke through last season.

“It’s my goal to win again,” said Millspaugh. “I don’t think that will be an easy task, but I think it’s doable. We were close enough to them at our dual meet there that maybe they’ll be a little more nervous going into the conference meet than they would have if they had beaten us by a little more. And we do have Erika back, which definitely makes a difference ...”

Hunt didn’t compete at Connersville in mid-January when the Patriots fell 100.55-99.2. Hannah Williams was also still recovering from injury at that point and has added a lot of difficulty to her routines in the interim. Several other Patriots have also added new elements to their routines.

And, that 100.55 — it came with junior Kristin Gilley scoring a school record 37.55 — still stands as the Spartans best score of the season. Jay County’s top score is a 100.45.

“There are a lot of things we’re doing now that we weren’t doing then,” said Millspaugh. “But they also had a bad night. Their No. 2 gymnast got hurt that night. I think it’ll probably be a very close meet that could come out either way. That’s definitely our focus for the rest of the week.”[[In-content Ad]]