Swimming sectional returning to Jay County (11/05/07)

INDIANAPOLIS - The swimming sectionals are back.

After three years away from home, Jay County High School will once again play host to boys and girls swimming sectionals in 2008. The IHSAA announced the tournament format Friday for all 2007-08 winter sports.

The other major changes in venue for Jay County come in basketball, where the boys and girls teams make the jump from Class 3A to Class 4A this season.

The girls swimming preliminaries will be Thursday, Jan. 30, followed by the finals Saturday, Feb. 2, and the boys tournament will follow on Thursday, Feb. 14 (preliminaries) and Saturday, Feb. 16 (finals).

JCHS hosted the boys sectional tournament for 11 seasons and the girls for seven before the IHSAA mandated that all tournaments be contested at eight-lane pools to conform with the state finals format. In the interim Jay County built an eight-lane pool, and will once again be hosts of the girls tournament.

For the past three seasons, the Patriots and South Adams Starfires have competed at the sectional tournament hosted by Homestead. That format made state berths next-to-impossible for the two local teams - neither team sent a swimmer to the state finals during the span - as Homestead is regularly ranked in the top 10 in the state. In swimming, only the winner of each sectional event is guaranteed a spot in the state finals.

In past years, regulars at the Jay County sectional were South Adams, Adams Central, Bellmont, Bluffton and Norwell, and all of those teams will return. Blackford, which was in the group in 2004, and newcomers Delta, Muncie Central and Muncie Southside will round out the sectional.

Jay County's former Olympic Athletic Conference rival Huntington North will host the girls basketball sectional, and seven-time state champion Marion will be the host for boys basketball. The Patriots are joined in both tournaments by the host schools along with Fort Wayne North Side, Fort Wayne South Side and Homestead.

Marion and Huntington North will also be hosts for the respective regional tournaments.

The wrestling and gymnastics tournaments are unchanged for Jay County. The Patriots will host the wrestling sectional and regional tournaments - South Adams also competes at JCHS - and the gymnastics team will once again compete in the Muncie Central sectional.

South Adams will be in a five-team group with Adams Central, Bluffton, Bishop Luers and Woodlan for boys and girls basketball in Class 2A's Sectional 38. The boys tournament will be at Woodlan, and Bluffton will host the girls sectional.[[In-content Ad]]