Depth leads Patriots (12/08/06)

Jay County had half as many wins as the visiting Norwell Knights. And it had half as many second-place finishes. And still it came away victorious.

The Patriot girls swim team used the size of its roster to its advantage Thursday, defeating Norwell 163-135. The JCHS boys team slipped to 1-3 with a 157-147 loss to the Knights.

Jay County's girls overcame its lack of victories by filling all four lanes in every event while Norwell had three or fewer in every event. The Patriots took the lead for good in the 100 freestyle where Briann Saxman, Maddie Fennig and Nikisha Imel finished second, third and fourth respectively.

Cori Vormohr and Michelle Landfair each had one individual win and contributed to a relay victory.

Vormohr finished a run of three Patriot wins in four events, winning the 100 breaststroke by more than four seconds in 1-minute, 12.11 seconds.

She fell just 16 hundredths of a second short of her own school record as she placed second in the 200 individual medley.

Landfair continued her run of tight victories in the 50 freestyle. She fought off Norwell's Nikki Rehling by six hundredths of a second to win with a time of 27.98.

Vormohr and Landfair also teamed with Saxman and Tina Gingrasso for the team's lone relay victory of the night, posting a time of 1:54.19 in the 200 freestyle relay.

Ashley Horn turned in the other Jay County victory, taking the 500 freestyle in 6:40.77.

April Acker finished second in diving with 171.15 points.

The Patriot boys team finished with just one individual win. Aaron Hudson turned in that victory, finishing ahead of the Knights' Gavin Thiele in the 200 freestyle at 2:08.86.

Hudson also joined Chance Milligan, Andres Ayesta and Tom McCord to take the 200 freestyle relay in 1:41.08.

Adding second-place efforts for the Jay County boys were Steven Kelly (diving), Milligan (50 freestyle), McCord (100 butterfly), Ayesta (100 freestyle), Cain (500 freestyle) and Eldridge (100 backstroke).[[In-content Ad]]