Patriot boys defeat No. 7 Richmond

RICHMOND - The Patriots sent two athletes to the state finals last season. They both are back.

The return of Brandon Reynard and Dexter Shreve gave the Jay County High School boys track team high hopes for the 2009 season, and some of that promise was realized Tuesday.

Reynard won three events, including a couple of showdowns against a fellow 2008 state medalist, to lead the Patriots to an 88-71 victory over the No. 7 Richmond Red Devils.

The JCHS girls also defeated Richmond, 89-71. Seton Catholic competed at the meet as well, but scored just six combined points.

Reynard keyed the win for the Patriot boys with his victories over Leo Cordova, who provided the Red Devils a 12th-place finish in the state last season by taking fifth in the 200-meter dash and sixth in the 100 dash. He fought off Cordova by just five hundredths of a second in the 100 dash to win with a time of 11.06 seconds.

The JCHS senior scored a bigger win in the 200 dash, beating Cordova to the line by seven tenths of a second in 22.26.

Reynard also dominated the 110 hurdles in 16.14 to lead a Jay County sweep in front of Zach Cash and Nic Leonhard.

Seniors Lance Franklin and Tevan Nichols added two wins apiece.

Franklin owned the discus, winning by more than 20 feet with a throw of 116 feet, 6 ½ inches. His toss of 41 feet, 4 ½ inches was good enough to win the shot put by more than two feet.

Nichols posted a couple of 10-second wins in the long distance events. He took the 1,600 run in 4-minutes, 46.2 seconds and the 3,200 run at 10:26.27.

In the 4x800 relay, Nichols teamed with Joe Rasmussen, Kyle Simmons and Brady Mills for an easy win in 9:04.67.

Maria Murphy, a freshman, led the Patriots girls to victory with a pair of field-event wins.

Murphy paced a sweep of the discus with a winning throw of 93 feet, 5 ½ inches to finish ahead of teammates Michaela Long and Amy Alig. She also took the shot put at 31 feet, 4 ½ inches.

Rasmussen, a foreign exchange student from Denmark, made it a clean sweep of JCHS in the sprints with his winning time of 54.77 in the 400 dash.

He also joined Shreve, Mills and Simmons in winning the 4x400 relay at 3:45.76.

Shreve took the top spot in the high jump at 5 feet, 8 inches, and Cash won the 300 hurdles in 46.25.

Macey Gerber powered the Patriots to a sweep of the girls 400 dash, winning in 1:08.63 ahead of teammates Kari Hemmelgarn and Megan Taylor. Katie Butcher finished first in the 800 run in 2:40 with teammate Katie Simmons less that a second behind as the runner-up.

Butcher also teamed with Simmons, Kylie Wellman and Leah Wellman for a time of 11:06.2 to win the 4x800 relay. Gerber joined Hemmelgarn, Taylor and Liz Lennartz in winning the 4x400 relay.

Jay County swept the high jump with senior Lindsey Current clearing the bar at 5 feet, 2 inches to win ahead of teammates Kelsey Wood and Jordan McMillan. In the 200 dash, McMillan finished first with a time of 27.38.[[In-content Ad]]