Patriots place second at New Palestine Invite

NEW PALESTINE — The Patriots had a strong start to their season last week.

Mallory Winner dominated her opponent. Emily Manor and Katie Rowles were forced to sit out of both matches as they won by forfeit. All three of them stood atop the podium on Saturday.

All three Patriots were champions of their weight class to power the Jay County High School girls wrestling team to second place at the New Palestine Invitational on Saturday.

The Patriots (2-0) scored 144 points to finish second out of 27 teams. Franklin Central ran away with first place, earning 172.5 points.

Rowels swept her opponents in all five rounds of a round-robin style tournament at the 100 pound weight class. All four wins were by fall. The sophomore was named the most outstanding wrestler of the tournament for winning by the most pins in the least amount of time.

Manor also won all four of her matches by fall. In the championship round of the 140 weight class, she pinned Aries Day of Clinton Prairie.

Winner had a bye in the first round of the 155 bracket and won the next two by fall. In the championship round, she beat Monrovia’s Josie Hause in an 8-1 decision.

Five more Patriots placed. They were Willow Hardy (125, second), Lina Lingo (130, fifth), Kiley Williams (190, fifth), Sophie Thomas (105, sixth) and Maleah Parsons (145th, seventh).

Bronze wins

HUNTINGTON — The JC Flipsters bronze level athletes of JC Tumbling and Gymnastics walked away as the Xcel Bronze team champions on Saturday at the 2024 Hollywood Red Carpet gymnastics meet at Huntington North High School.

Carlie Runkle led the way with the second-best all-around score of 35.625 points in the XB All Ages Session. Aubrey Forman followed with 35.475 and Brinely Steury was next with 35.2.

Steury had the only two first-place finishes for the Flipsters. On the vault, her score of 8.95 points was good enough for the top spot, while 9.0 earned her the win on the floor.

Charli Stephens was the top performer for the Flipsters in the silver level. A first-place finish of 9.425 points on the bars helped her to fourth all-around with 35.9 points in the XS Junior Session.

Leading the gold team that finished in third place was Jordyn Champ. Her best event was the vault which she finished as the runner-up with 9.05 points. She had 34.425 all-around points to earn fifth in the XG Junior Session.