Late rally

Breaststroke has long been a strength for the Patriots.

They had won the event in eight consecutive sectionals. That streak was broken Saturday, but their depth in the race still came through.

By placing three swimmers in the top eight of their favorite event, the Patriots edged ahead of Huntington North for third place. The 400-yard freestyle relay team finished the job.

With a fifth-place finish in the final event — two spots ahead of the Vikings — Jay County High School’s girls swim team locked in a 4.5-point advantage Saturday to place third in the sectional for the third year in a row.

“Our breaststrokers brought us back to up a half a point and then our 400 relay dropped three seconds to win (third place) for us,” said JCHS coach Matt Slavik. “I think everybody kind of assumed we were going to end up fourth until the breaststroke.”

“We had a great day today,” he added. “We had a great sectional run. …

“I can’t speak highly enough about all these kids’ improvement. … We had a lot of great times today. …

“All in all, I’m super proud of these girls. Third place was the best I could hope for given the competition we had today.”

Junior Maddy Snow, who was part of the breaststroke comeback, is the lone Patriot whose season will continue after she finished as the diving runner-up. (The winner of each swimming event moves on to the state finals while the top four divers more on to the regional.) She will compete in the diving regional at 6 p.m. Tuesday at South Side in Fort Wayne.

Delta took first place in 11 out of 12 events — Bluffton freshman Gabriella Coyne broke the Eagles’ dominance in the 100-yard breaststroke — to repeat as the sectional champion with 468 points, 70 more than runner-up Norwell. Host JCHS followed with 265, just ahead of Huntington North’s 260.5.

Jay County trailed the Vikings by nearly 20 points with just two events remaining but, as has regularly been the case for the Patriots, the breaststroke changed the complexion of the meet.

With senior Zion Beiswanger climbing one spot from her No. 5 seed to finish fourth in 1 minute, 15.94 seconds, junior Morgan DeHoff taking sixth in 1:17.75 and Snow placing 12th in 1:22.31, JCHS vaulted into the No. 3 spot by a half-point over the Vikings. That left the Patriots needing to finish ahead of Huntington North — they were sixth and fifth, respectively, in the 400 freestyle relay Thursday — in the final race in order to hold on to third place overall.

Huntington North’s relay team was nearly a second faster than two days earlier. The Patriots surpassed that, as Aubrey Millspaugh, Sophia Hoevel, Maisey Keller and Ariel Beiswanger improved by 2.61 seconds to climb to fifth place while the Vikings slipped to seventh.

Slavik visited the quartet prior to the race to fill them in on the impact their finish would have on the team result.

“I walked over and they were like, ‘We already know,’” he said.

Their coach reiterated that he was just making sure they were ready.

“They said, ‘We’ll do it,’” Slavik said. “And they did.”

“A lot of times these kids, we get to the 400 relay and, I think you saw it with Huntington, they got to the 400 relay and they’re just tired,” he added. “It speaks as a testament to our kids that once they realized we were only up by half a point … those girls were able to rise up.”

The Patriots have had three swimmers score in the breaststroke in eight consecutive years, including a sweep of the top three spots by Alex Bader, Vivienne Kunkler and Jamie Valentine in 2017. (The streak would be 16 years, if not for a disqualification in 2016.)

“It’s kind of like Breaststroke High,” said Slavik. “Every year we seem to find three breaststrokers that score. …

“We’ve had several meets, several sectionals and conferences over the last 15 years that basically came down to the breaststroke event and it’s saved our bacon.”

In addition to her effort in the breaststroke, Snow gave Jay County its best individual finish. She established herself in second place in diving through the preliminaries (five dives) Saturday morning, trailing Delta sophomore Grier Backus by just over 23 points and leading Emerson Meredith of Norwell by less than four. She stayed within 25 points of Backus heading into the finals while extending her second-place advantage to almost 10 points.

Snow, who was happiest with her forward one-and-one-half twist, was able to close the gap in the finals, finishing 19.55 points behind champion Backus with 348.85 points. Delta’s Savanna Condie was third with 240.45, and Meredith earned the final regional spot with 324.65.

“I’m happy with my score,” said Snow, who missed a chunk of the season with an injury. “Being out for six weeks is definitely hard. I think if I had that (time), things might have gone a little bit differently today, just with my score. But I did do a personal best and I’m happy that … I got to do that.”

Jay County finished fourth in the 200 relays, as Lauren Fisher, Morgan DeHoff and Zion Beiswanger teamed with Avery Wentz to post a time of 2:02.05 in the medley and joined Hoevel to complete the freestyle in 1:49.52.

Fisher jumped two spots from her seed to place fifth in the 100 butterfly in 1:08.42 and Kenzie Huey held her No. 5 seed in the 100 backstroke as she finished in 1:07.94.

Wentz, a sophomore, was the biggest positive mover on the day for Jay County. She climbed two positions in the 100 backstroke to finish in 1:09.29 for sixth place behind Huey and picked up three places in the 200-yard individual medley for 11th place.

Hoevel was eighth in both the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle, and Millspaugh finished eighth in the 500 freestyle.

Also scoring for the Patriots in consolation races were Millspaugh (ninth – 200 freestyle), Zion Beiswanger (10th – 200 individual medley), Ariel Beiswanger (11th – 500 freestyle, 13th – 200 freestyle), Hannah Laux (11th – 100 butterfly, 13th – 200 individual medley), Fisher (12th – 50 freestyle), DeHoff (14th – 50 freestyle), Kenzie Clayton (15th – 100 butterfly) and Keller (16th – 100 freestyle).