Jay tops SA boys

The Jay County boys won 10 of 12 events Monday night. The SAHS girls out-distanced the Patriots.

Dexter Shreve and Brandon Reynard won three events apiece to power the Jay County High School boys track team to a 73-50 victory over visiting South Adams.

"It was ugly, but we did enough," said JCHS boys coach Greg Garringer as he and South Adams coach Clint Anderson both noted they were coming off odd weekends in the season. "If you get lazy against a team like this, they'll get you. ... We didn't have our best effort tonight, but we did enough."

Hannah Moore's two first-place finishes led the Starfire girls' dominance of the distance events as they eked out a 64-59 win over JCHS.

"South Adams is one of the most challenging teams we run against because they have everything," said Patriot girls coach Brian McEvoy, whose team suffered its first defeat. "They have outstanding distance. They always have a good hurdler, a good sprinter. ... Our girls knew this was a big challenge ... and somebody was going to lose tonight. Unfortunately it was us. ... They deserved to win."

Dexter Shreve and Brandon Reynard set the pace for Jay County's boys, coming off of a Saturday that included the Muncie Relays and prom.

Shreve garnered victories in all of his events, dominating the 400-meter dash, high jump and long jump.

The senior cruised past the field and won the 400 dash by nearly three seconds in 52.68 seconds. He jumped two feet longer than anyone else to win at 19 feet, 11 inches and four inches higher than the field at 6 feet even.

Shreve also ran the lead leg of the Patriots' winning 4x400-meter relay team, joining Kyle Simmons, Brady Mills and Joe Rasmussen to win in 3-minutes, 44.31 seconds.

Reynard earned wins in three of four events, dominating the 110 hurdles in 15.46 seconds and the 300 hurdles in 40.72.

"I think Jay County has got a great team," said Anderson. "(Reynard), we don't see many that good. He's got it all going for him."

Reynard and the Starfires' Mark Farris engaged in a couple of battles to the finish line in the sprints.

Farris finished one hundredth of a second behind Reynard's winning time of 10.87 in the 100 dash, but then grabbed the win in the 200 dash by nine hundredths of a second in a school-record time of 22.4.

He broke the mark of 22.49 set by Brad Tumbleson in 2000.

"He had a solid run in the 200," said Anderson. "Just to have a kid like that, to come out of nowhere his senior year and be running as well as he is, is just phenomenal."

Moore led an impressive effort by the SAHS girls distance runners.

The freshman led a sweep of the 1,600 run in 5:45.09 ahead of teammates Maddie Moore and Allison Beitler. She was also first in the 3,200 run at 12:15 with Sawyer Shane as the runner-up.

The Starfires also took the top two spots in the 800 run with Beitler first in 2:36 ahead of Maddie Moore, and won the 4x800 relay in 10:36.

"They're a solid group of girls," said Anderson. "They feed off of each other really well, and they enjoy what they do. They've really taken pride in the 4x800 relay."

Other individual wins for South Adams came from Adrianna Teeter in the 100 hurdles and Chelsey Nevil in the 400 dash. The Starfires also took the 4x100 relay.

Bailee Green, a freshman, was second to the Patriots' Jordan McMillan in the 100 dash, but tied the SAHS school record with a time of 12.7 seconds. She now shares the record set by Katie Weaver in 2007.

"We like to break records down here because the tailwind comes in here perfectly," said Anderson. "This is the same place that Katie set hers."

Lance Franklin followed Shreve and Reynard for the JCHS boys by taking first place in both throwing events. He had tosses of 44 feet even in the shot put and 119 feet, 5 inches in the discus.

Tevan Nichols took the 1,600 run in 4:49.44, and Joe Rasmussen was first in the 800 run in 2:08.69.

"Tevan and Franklin, those two guys are the unsung heroes," said Garringer of the pair of seniors. "Lance is by far our leader in the throws. Tevan has run some nice times. ... Those two guys have definitely come through for us."

McMillan won three events to pace the Jay County girls, including her narrow victory over Green in the 100 dash in 12.49. She also took the 200 dash in 26.92 and the long jump at 14 feet, 4 inches.

"She doesn't even run the 100 for us full-time and she was one tenth off the school record," said McEvoy of McMillan. "She should have all the confidence in the world the way she's running right now."

Maria Murphy took the shot put and the discus at 32 feet, 8 ½ inches and 97 feet, 9 inches respectively, and Lindsey Current completed the field-event sweep for JCHS by winning the high jump at 5 feet, 3 inches. Brianna Wellman was first in the 300 hurdles in 52.9.

Aaron Lehman was the only individual winner for the Starfires other than Farris, taking the 3,200 run at 11:22.[[In-content Ad]]