Second by one

One point.

Anyone who needed proof that every race and ever place matters got it Saturday.

The Jay County High School swim team finished second as hosts of the Jay County Invitational, trailing champion New Bremen by a single point.

The Patriots scored 326 to the Cardinals’ 327. Oak Hill was third with 279.

“New Bremen’s a much-improved them,” said JCHS coach Matt Slavik. “They keep getting better every year. They’ve got a lot of really talented kids. So hats off to New Bremen.

“There’s no doubt they came through in the 400 relays. It came down to that. We were up five going in. … Quite frankly, they just wanted to win a little bit more than we did.

“Coming in second at your own invitational stinks, but it’s also a good learning opportunity for the kids. Everything matters. It’s not just a one person, one relay thing. … I think that’s a great lesson for them to learn today.”

Fort Recovery’s girls placed eighth with 164 points. They trailed three Midwest Athletic Conference rivals — New Bremen, sixth-place Coldwater (195) and seventh place Versailles (193).

“I was happy,” said FRHS coach Mindy Bubp. “I knew going in it’s a large meet and there are a lot of really strong teams there. We did well.”

“It gives them a good chance to see where we stand and fine-tune things a little bit before the end of the season.”

Jay County’s boys scored 320 points to finish behind Oak HIll (463), Bluffton (393) and Versailles (346). Fort Recovery placed seventh among 13 scoring teams with 78 points.

The girls meet came down to the final event, with New Bremen edging Jay County for third place in the 400-yard freestyle relay. The Cardinals, who also took 12th in the event, got a third-place finish from Annie Jiang, Alana Speelman, Carolina Whitlatch and Diana Heitkamp in 4 minutes, 4.25 seconds. Mara Bader, Rieley Brewster, Elayna Paro and Lilli Clemmons of the Patriots were just behind in fourth place in 4:04.7.

Juniors Ashlyn Dow and Eliza Bader picked up the two wins for JCHS, with the former using a strong breaststroke leg to fight off Oak Hill’s Emma Bledsoe in the 200 individual medley in 2:21.19 and the latter dominating the 100 butterfly by nearly 1.5 seconds in 1:00.67. Dow was also third in the 100 breaststroke while Bader finished third in the 50 freestyle.

They also joined classmate Rieley Brewster and senior Erica Hathaway for second in the 200 medley relay in 1:56.32.

“The 200 medley relay was awesome. We swam great,” said Slavik. “We came up short on that one, but if you look at the swimmer for swimmer comparison, I thought we swam darn well. It's the fastest we’ve gone this season. It’s where we need to be.”

Ava Bubp, Mindy’s daughter, recorded the top finish for Fort Recovery in third place in the 500 freestyle in 5:52.78. Kyra Clark was 10th in the same event.

Clark also posted a fourth-place finish in the 100 backstroke in 1:07.99, with Jay County’s Clemmons next in 1:08.45.

“Ava had a good day,” said Mindy Bubp. “Her times dropped quite a bit from the last time she swam those events.

“And Kyra Clark had a good day in the backstroke and 500 free as well.”

Griffin Mann and Chase McFarland led the JCHS boys, each posting a fourth-place finish. Mann was fourth in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:08.72 while McFarland took fourth in the 100 backstroke in 1:02.53. Mann was also sixth in the 200 individual medley while McFarland placed seventh in the 100 butterfly.

Kyle Sanders placed fifth in both the 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle. Sam Crump also broke the one-minute mark for the first time in his career as he went 59.1 to place 12th in the 100 freestyle.

Clemmons was also fifth for the Patriot girls in the 100 freestyle with Hathaway behind her in sixth. Hathaway added a seventh-place finish in the 200 freestyle, and Mara Bader was seventh in the 100 butterfly.

For both Jay County and Fort Recovery, the meet served as an opportunity to prepare for upcoming conference meets and postseason tournaments.

“That’s kind of what I envisioned,” said Slavik. “This is a perfect precursor. They get to see a little bit different talent, some pretty good talent across the board, and see where they’re going to stack up as we get closer (to the postseason).”

“We have about three or four weeks here where we can really just work on some of our relays and some of our starts and turns for some of the kids,” said Bubp. “And we’ll obviously keep grinding away at the yardage a little bit.”