Starfire tankers top Jay (12/12/06)

BERNE - Janelle Gresla had her concerns about youth and inexperience. But when those young swimmers consistently rack up double wins and the inexperienced are breaking school records, those concerns disappear.

Freshman Justin Klopp earned a couple of wins to lead the South Adams boys swim team to a 95-75 win over Jay County Monday. Sophomore Jessica Sharp and senior Channing Yoder each won a pair of events for the Starfire girls as they topped the Patriots 109-61.

"My team was petrified coming into this," said Gresla, whose boys and girls teams are now 5-0 and 7-1 respectively. "We had heard that Jay County's girls beat Norwell's girls, and that was enough to scare my girls to no end. We decided we were not leaving anything outside the pool tonight. They really stepped up. We had a lot of PBs tonight.

"It was a good meet for us. It seemed like the energy was much higher tonight in the pool."

Gresla's boys team won 10 of 12 events to earn the victory with Jay County's Tom McCord taking the other two. JCHS boys coach Barry Weaver said he was happy with his team's effort, despite falling to 1-4.

"We swam better tonight than we have for a while," said Weaver. "That's a positive thing. We've had about seven days of meets in 12 days and it kind of wore on us. I don't know if that was the deal (at the Norwell Invitational) Saturday or not, but we didn't swim real well. So tonight we turned around and I thought we had some really nice performances."

The Patriot girls managed five victories, but South Adams earned two sweeps and two more one-two finishes for their 48-point triumph.

"The score was a little bit further apart than I had hoped, but the team that showed up tonight was a little bit of the team that swam against Oak Hill last Tuesday," said JCHS girls coach Bev Arnold. "It wasn't the team that we had against Norwell on Thursday night. We had a few, but not gobs and gobs of personal bests."

"To even give South Adams any kind of a (challenge), we had to swim bests all throughout the lineup."

Klopp had another outstanding night following a record-breaking effort at the Norwell Invitational Saturday.

The freshman, who broke Chris Beymer's school record in the 50-yard freestyle (22.40) with a time of 22.22 at Norwell, clobbered the field in both the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke. He won the butterfly by nearly eight seconds in 56.12, and took the backstroke by more than 14 seconds in 59.41.

He also rallied the Starfires in the 400 freestyle relay. Teammates John Gresla, Justin Summer and Alex Habegger trailed Jay County by about two seconds after the first 300 yards, but Klopp erased the deficit after just 25 yards and pulled away to win in 3-minutes, 46.63 seconds.

Klopp, Gresla, Habegger and Kyle Affolder teamed to win the 200 medley relay in 1:52.16.

"I think he will (make a run at state)," said Gresla of Klopp, whose record time in the 50 free was barely shy of the state standard. "His backstroke he's right there with the school record and he's pretty close to the 100 fly. He's probably the one who has benefited the most from swimming year round. But I look at the boys team and I really feel like I have talent all the way through. It's been a really good season for us."

Sharp has been a consistent double winner for the Starfire girls, and got some big help from Yoder Monday as their four wins all came by significant margins.

The 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly belonged to Sharp as she led dominant South Adams efforts in both. She finished in front of teammates Allison Beitler and Kirsten Wurster to win the 200 freestyle in 2:12.37 and went one-two with fellow sophomore Jalisa Balsiger with a time of 1:08.62 in the 100 butterfly.

Yoder had similar results, leading a swept of the 100 breaststroke in 1:20.56 with Deserae Kirchhofer and Jansen Yoder in second and third. She took the 200 individual medley in 2:36.88 ahead of Balsiger.

Jansen Yoder, a freshman, picked up the other victory for the SAHS girls in one of the many tight races on the evening. After falling slightly behind at the turn she rallied to edge Jay County freshman Michelle Landfair by 16 hundredths of a second in 28.28.

"I had a lot of great swims with the girls," said Gresla. "I look at Jessica Sharp, who has been my lead swimmer all season, who stepped up in both the 200 free and the 100 fly. Channing Yoder my senior stepped up big time in the IM.

"It's nice to have stand-out swimmers, but it was a real team effort tonight because we could come through and even if we couldn't take first we could take second, third and fourth."

Four different South Adams boys split up the remaining individual victories.

Alex Habegger took the 100 freestyle in 55.60, and Justin Sommer won the 200 freestyle at 2:12.88. Kyle Affolder took the 100 breaststroke in 1:09.71, and John Gresla finished in 2:22.65 to win the 200 individual medley.

McCord highlighted the effort for the Patriot boys, despite having a fever of 102 a day earlier and still battling strep throat. He knocked off Habegger in the 50 freestyle by 15 hundredths in 24.58, and got past Gresla in a back-and-forth 500 freestyle race in 5:36.93.

"He's really learning a lot about how to step up and do things even when you're not at your 100 percent," said Weaver. "I was real happy with his 500 and then his 50 was a good time ...

"We had a lot of guys really step up. Lance VanSkyock had a nice night. Scott Walker is glad to be back in the water. And then some of the young guys are really starting to come along."

Cori Vormohr earned two of Jay County's three individual wins by wide margins.

She built a mammoth lead in just the first 25 yards of the 500 freestyle and cruised by nearly 30 seconds in 5:51.33. She added a career-best time in the 100 backstroke to win by just over six seconds at 1:07.96.

Landfair turned the tables after losing the close race to Jansen Yoder in the 50 freestyle, holding off the Starfires' Beitler in 1:02.33 to win the 100 freestyle by just over a second.

"She wasn't going to let anybody beat her again after just getting out-touched in the 50," said Arnold.

While points were hard to come by in between, the Jay County girls came up with season-best times in the bookend relays.

The Patriot team of Vormohr, Landfair, Tina Gingrasso and Lauren Murrell knocked a chunk of time from their previous best to beat South Adams in the meet-opening 200 medley relay by one second flat in 2:09.78.

In the meet-ending 400 freestyle relay, Vormohr erased a three-second deficit as she and teammates Landfair, Gingrasso and Briann Saxman finished in 4:11.85 to win by 27 hundredths of a second.

"We knew in the last relay that we didn't have a chance to win the meet," said Arnold, noting that it can be hard to get motivated for the final race in that situation. "We needed to swim well. I think they really got fired up."[[In-content Ad]]