Track teams open with victories

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Instead they just hoped to be as competitive as possible.

Jay County High School’s track teams both opened their respective seasons by finishing in first place in a meet they hosted against the Blackford Bruins and Southern Wells Raiders on Tuesday.

“Obviously being the first meet (and) coming off of spring break, times aren’t what our goals are for the season,” said JCHS boys coach Kurt Hess, whose team scored 82 points for first place. Southern Wells tallied 48 as runner up, and Blackford was third with 26 points.

“I was pretty happy with the way they performed overall,” he said.

Brian McEvoy, Jay County’s girls coach, agreed the conditions didn’t make for a record-breaking meet.

“It wasn’t an ideal meet to go out and run really well,” he said. The Patriots totaled 84 points, ahead of Southern Wells (46) and Blackford (19). “It was just more to compete and have that toughness. I thought we did a good job in that aspect. We didn’t shatter any times or distances yet. Hopefully that’s down the road.

“We did a good job of competing. That was really more important to me than the times and distances so far at this point.”

In the two closest races of the evening, Jay County’s girls had to hold off a challenger to keep the top spot. Junior Breea Liette won the 100-meter hurdles in 18.23 seconds, and the 4x400 relay team fought off a late Southern Wells surge for a victory in 4 minutes, 47 seconds.

Erika Kunkler, Briana Muhlenkamp and Hanna Dillon raced out to a comfortable lead through the first three legs, until Southern Wells put up a late charge on the final lap against JCHS junior Kelsey Burden. With a lead of more than 50 meters, Burden came out of the final turn with the Raider on her heels and never let her opponent catch up any further.

“I thought Kelsey did a pretty good job fighting it off,” McEvoy said. “She was kind of out there in no man’s land with a pretty good-sized lead when she got it. That is a pretty tough thing to do.”

Kunkler also earned an individual victory in the 800 run in 2:44.

Jay County swept the field events. Taylor Muhlenkamp placed first in discus with a distance of 96 feet, Rebekah Corwin won shot put (29 feet) and Kendal Garringer earned a victory in high jump with a height of 5 feet.

“That is an event that is going to be real competitive there,” McEvoy said of the high jumpers. Senior Audrey Shreve placed third and Karlie Bullard was fourth. “You get that narrowed down to two positions, that is going to be really tough to earn that. It’s going to be a good inter-team competition for that.

“Kendal Garringer has been absolutely solid this year. Audrey was solid as usual and we have a newcomer, Karlie Bullard, that jumped really, really well. … When you throw in Hallie Fields and Hanna Dillon, that is a really athletic group of high jumpers.”

Bullard joined Calli Stigleman, Taylor Homan and Lucy Laux for a victory in the 4x100 relay in 55.43 seconds. The 4x800 relay team of Olivia Kunkler, Gabby Kunkler, Kendra Muhlenkamp and Homan also won in 11:40.

Muhlenkamp won the 1,600 run in 6:04, Stigleman, a freshman, was the winner in the 100 dash in 13.83 seconds and Laux won the 200 dash in 28.22 seconds.

“We’ve got to have at least a three- or four-person rotation there that we can interchange them out,” McEvoy said of his sprint events. “We gave Calli a chance to shine in her first meet and she did a really nice job.”

Andrew Trewyn won all four individual events he competed in. He led a one-two punch in the high jump, discus and shot put events, while leading the Patriots as they took the top three spots in the 110 hurdles. Trewyn won with a time of 17.65 seconds.

“He’s our go-to guy,” Hess said. Trewyn’s height of 6 feet in the high jump beat teammate Gavin Randall by 4 inches. He beat classmates Tyler Leonhard — he won the 400 dash in 59.13 seconds — in shot put (37 feet, 7 inches) and Simon Brumfield in discus (96 feet, 8 inches).

“Lot of our field events had good throws,” Hess added, “especially with it being wet out there.”

Tayler Smeltzer won the 800 run in 2:27, Skyler Myers nabbed the 3,200 run in 11:27. The 4x400 relay team of Tyler Leonhard, Gavin Randall, Braden McIntire and Isaac Robbins won with a time of 4:03.