Championship throw

INDIANAPOLIS — Before 2021, the Patriots had gone a decade without a regional champion.

Now they have had two in the last three years.

Gabi Bilbrey dominated the discus Tuesday night, easily winning the title in the regional girls track meet at Pike.

Bilbrey’s throw of 128 feet, 1 inch, earned her the victory when the Jay County High School girls track team competed in five events at the IHSAA girls regional track meet at Pike High School on Tuesday.

The top three finishers in each event at the regional move on to the state finals, as well as anyone who matches or outperforms the state standard in that event. Bilbrey, who finished 15th in the state last season, will compete in the state competition at Indiana University on June 4.

The victory earned all 10 of the Patriots’ points in the meet, earning them 19th place while the Bishop Chatard Trojans earned the regional championship with 60 points.

“It is extremely huge,” JCHS coach Joe Imel said. “These are really, really great competitors here at this regional. A regional champion coming from this region is quite an accomplishment.”

Bilbrey follows Elisa Parazzi, an exchange student from Italy who won the high jump regional title for the Patriots two years ago. Prior to her win, the last championship for the program came from Maria Murphy, also in the discus, in 2011.

On Tuesday, Bilbrey’s first throw landed outside of the sector lines for a scratch.

“A lot of nerves with the tailwind,” Bilbrey said. “I don’t throw well with tailwinds because I throw really high up with the nose of the discus.

“I was feeling nervous. Legs were feeling shaky. Didn’t feel like I had full strength yet so definitely got in my head a little bit.”

In between throws, throwing coach Brian Miles pulled Bilbrey aside to talk about footwork and focus. She then came back with a throw of 119 feet, 8 inches, the furthest anyone had thrown to that point, ensuring she would be one of the nine finalists.

“It took a ton of pressure off because I knew 119 put me in the lead and solidified three more throws in the finals,” Bilbrey said. “I knew I could get into it, go a little bit faster on my next throws and be ready to rip it.”

Her final throw of the preliminary round flew for 122 feet, 10 inches, which would have been good enough for first place. (Alaina Bowman of New Castle finished second with a throw of 118 feet, 8 inches).

On her first throw of the finals, Bilbrey launched her disc 128 feet, 1 inch, surpassing the state standard of 126 feet, 2 inches, to guarantee her a spot in the state competition.

Bilbrey’s final two throws didn’t surpass her first throw of the finals.

Bilbrey also competed in the shot put. Her best throw went 37 feet, but she fell three inches short of the finals, with Amya Candler of North Central earning the final spot with a throw of 37 feet, 3 inches.

Other Patriots who competed in the regional meet were Jenna Dues in the 200-meter dash, Alexis Sibray in the 800 run and Molly Muhlenkamp, Willow Hardy, Paityn Wendel and Sibray in the 4x800 relay. All of them were seeded in the lower half of their respective events.

Imel challenged the girls to earn career bests during the meet, something Jenna Dues accomplished.

Although Dues fell short of making the finals, her time of 27.46 seconds was a career best. Paige Brooks of Yorktown was the slowest finalist with a time of 26.37 seconds, just over one second faster than Dues who finished 15th in the event.

While Alexis Sibray did not run a career best in the 800 run, she did meet Imel’s other goal for her.

“Our motivation for (Sibray) was to compete and beat the Delta girl who is also a freshman,” Imel said. “To get it in (Sibray’s) mind that she can compete with her and win because we are going to be seeing her for the next three years at our sectional.”

Sibray accomplished this goal, finishing 12th with a time of 2 minutes, 30.46 seconds (only 0.46 seconds off her career best), while Jordan Bunch of Delta finished in 13th with a time of 2:30.84.

Imel was happy with the efforts and hopes that the two can grow from the experience.

“For those two young girls, a sophomore and a freshman, we will look forward for them to continue to get better,” Imel said. “Now that they have a taste of what this competition is all about hopefully they’ll want to be able to come back and better their performance.”

The Patriots’ 4x800 relay team didn’t have its best showing, finishing 15th with a time of 10:51.9, just under 13 seconds slower than their best time. Wendel posted a career best during the race, but the other three legs were slower than usual.

All four girls are set to return for the Patriots in the 2024 season.

“Quite an accomplishment for them to get here and compete,” Imel said. “Just really proud of them and hope they will continue to get better. … Three of them are in cross country and one is in soccer so hopefully they will continue to work hard.”