Trewyn, Patriots miss regional

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MUNCIE — For most of the year, Andrew Trewyn had been hovering around 6 feet in the high jump.

Almost quite literally.

Thursday, he cleared the height with relative ease.

One inch higher gave him fits.

Trewyn was unable to defend his high jump title, placing fifth and accounting for 10 of the Patriots’ 26 points as the Jay County High School boys track team had its season come to a close in the IHSAA Boys Track and Field Sectional at Muncie Central.

The host Bearcats won the team championship with 131 points, defeating Delaware County rival Delta by 10 points. Defending champion Yorktown was third with 113 points. Jay County finished eighth out of 11 teams.

“He seemed to be stuck at that 6 foot, 6-foot-2 mark all season,” said JCHS coach Kurt Hess, whose team failed to have a regional qualifier for the first time since 2000. “His technique was better than last year, he just couldn’t get over that hump, I guess.”

Trewyn had jumped 6 feet, 2 inches, earlier in the year and was seeded third behind Delta’s Kyle Wills and Muncie Central’s Gino Taylor.

Those three, as well as Muncie Central’s Mason Schnake and Union City’s Trevor Thompson all cleared 6 feet. Trewyn, Schnake and Thompson were unable to add one inch.

Wills, who was the top seed, won the championship with a jump of 6 feet, 5 inches. Jay County’s Gavin Randall was sixth at 5 feet, 10 inches.

“Randall, nice surprise even though he didn’t move on,” Hess said.

The top three places in each event advance to regional.

Trewyn’s best finish, and the best for the Patriots, came in the shot put. He had a distance of 42 feet, 4 inches, during his preliminary throws, but was unable to improve on it and was fourth. Bryce Monroe of Burris won with a put of 45 feet, 0.5 inches.

“I was hoping someone would scratch a couple times,” Hess said.

Senior Tyler Leonhard advanced to the finals with a throw of 39 feet, and improved more than 2 feet in the finals to place fifth at 41 feet, 7 inches.

“We couldn’t complain with the throw that (Trewyn) had,” Hess added. “Threw decent, just tough competition.”

Trewyn was also eighth in the discus at 105 feet, 8 inches.

Jay County also had a pair place in the top eight in the 300-meter hurdles. Isaac Robbins was fifth in 44.05 seconds, and Noah Harris had a time of 45.2 seconds for eighth place. Robbins took nearly two seconds off his seed time (45.8), while Harris (46.14) dropped nearly a full second.

“Isaac in the 300 hurdles had been really kicking it in at the end of the year,” Hess said.

The Patriots’ 4x400 relay team of Logan Duran, Randall, Leonhard and Robbins were in a perfect spot after the first leg, but a bad exchange took any away any chance they may have had at finishing in the top three.

Starting at the front of the stagger, Duran kept his position and was in the lead after his lap, but a slow exchange to Randall put the Patriots at the back of the pack. Leonhard and Robbins weren’t able to gain any ground, despite the third leg from both Delta and Muncie Central getting tangled with one another and tumbling to the track.

Delta surged to win in 3:32.05, and Jay County placed eighth in 3:46.55.

“I think (Duran) kind of died at the end, which screwed up Randall’s exchange,” Hess said, noting that Duran had been feeling under the weather the last couple days. “Of course that’s at least a second or two.”

Nathanael Day, Matthew Paquette, Nick Neal and Cole Watson combined to win their heat of the 4x100 relay. Their time of 47.66 seconds was good enough for seventh.

Jay County’s 4x400 relay team of Alex LeMaster, Zade Fosnaugh, Skyler Myers and Tayler Smeltzer were eighth in 9:42.96.