One for the boys

The Patriots haven’t had much luck this season.

Running into larger schools with big swim programs have kept them from winning early.

That has changed as the boys have finally etched their name into the win column.

The Jay County High School boys swim team earned its first victory of the year while also checking off its first Allen County Athletic Conference win by taking down the South Adams Starfires 145-76 Monday. The girls team also took down SAHS 146-119.

The boys (1-4, 1-1 ACAC) dropped their first four matches of the season, including the opener against Bluffton. 

“The boys swam well,” Jay County coach Matt Slavik said. “It’s a big first win. We needed it for the boys and just morale in general. It’s always a big thing when you get that first win when we’ve started off with four in a row where we were getting beat up a little bit.

“It’s nice and the boys were happy after the meet. I feel like their morale was boosted, so it’ll be strong going into Monday against Adams Central.”

While one of the Patriots’ top freestyle swimmers, Peyton Yowell, was sidelined with a boot on his foot, they had three swimmers step up to the plate.

Lincoln Clamme helped fill in for Yowell, by swimming the 50-yard freestyle and 500 freestyle events. He finished second in both, while setting a new career best in the 500 freestyle with a time of 6 minutes, 37.88 seconds, which is 27.42 seconds faster than his seed time.

David Keen had one of three individual first-place finishes for the boys, taking the 100 butterfly with a time of 1:10.34.

The other two victories belong to Joseph Dow. He won the 100 freestyle (59.69 seconds) and the 100 backstroke, swimming a career best time of 1:14.17.

Kamdyn Carter swims the 100-yard breaststroke for the JCHS boys swim team on Monday. The boys picked up their first win of the season, taking down South Adams 145-76. (The Commercial Review/Andrew Balko)

 

“We’ve worked a lot on mental toughness,” Dow said. “Like, whenever you feel like you can't swim, just keeping that pace going. That’s helped a lot.”

Dow also mentioned how the exhibition meet the team held against Bluffton on Friday has helped the team with its nerves and played a part in Monday’s meet, in which they needed the depth to outscore the Starfires.

The final top finish for the boys came from the 400 freestyle team composed of Max Klopfenstein, Grayson Swoveland, Oskar Mateo and Hugo Gutierrez.

Depth was also a key for the girls team, which also only got four wins. Slavik shook up the lineup for the meet to try girls in different events to see what kind of depth the Patriots (3-2, 2-0 ACAC) have.

“Knowing a little bit about what South Adams is bringing to the table, that allows us to spread out,” Slavik said. “If they swim their best events all the time, it gets to be a long and mundane season. This allows them to switch up a little bit so it’s good.”

Jay County’s individual victories came from Sophia Hoevel in the 500 freestyle (6:36.06), Morgan DeHoff in the 100 backstroke (1:16.85) and Naroa Zugasti in the 1-meter diving (108).

Zugasti, along with Luci May (84), set their career bests in the meet, impressing Slavik with their growth throughout the first half of the season.

“Probably the biggest thing on the girls’ side was the two divers,” Slavik said. “They’ve been working hard at it.

“Just trying to get their six events, then just when they started getting it, they weren't able to dive last week because they didn't have the reverse dive and then they both came in and improved on their best scores by like 20 or 30 points.”

The final victory came from the 200 medley relay (2:14.98) made up of Kenzie Huey, DeHoff, Lauren Fisher and Zion Beiswanger.

Jay County will travel to Delta to take on the Eagles tonight and then travels to Adams Central on Dec. 18 before a nine-day break. Slavik is looking forward to the break to give the team the opportunity to take some of the stress from having so many meets off of the swimmers.

“We work hard and we get into this grind part of the year,” Slavik said. “We grind for these couple of weeks before Christmas, and then we'll grind through January. It becomes a bit stressful for them, so we just need some time to just get back into practice. …

“It’s been brutal the last few weeks and I know the kids are feeling it, but I think we are moving in the right direction.”