Girls claim ACAC title

BLUFFTON — The Patriot girls finished three points shy of the Warriors for the top spot at the conference meet last year.

Despite losing a state competitor, the Patriots wouldn’t repeat the same fate and a school record was set along the way.

The Jay County High School girls track team’s 122 points topped the Woodlan Warriors to earn the Allen County Athletic Conference meet championship on Friday night. The boys also competed, fourth place with 90.5 points.

Woodlan finished as the runner-up in the girls competition with 116.5 points and was the only team to finish within 10 points of Jay County.

Host Bluffton dominated the boys competition with 175 points. Second place ended up being a closely contested match with Heritage earning the spot with 97 points, while South Adams (92) and Jay County trailed behind.

In total, the Patriots took the top spot in seven events at the meet.

Matilda Mende, Jenna Dues, Ariel Beiswanger and Morgan DeHoff ran the 4x100-meter relay and set a new school record with a time of 50.87 seconds. Abby Arnold, Chelsea Rains, Dawn Ogden and Lisa McKee set the previous record in 2000.

Mende and Dues earned individual ACAC titles as well.

Mende took the top spot in the 100 dash with a time of 12.83 seconds to beat out Dues for the top spot.

Dues’ time of 27.1 seconds in the 200 dash beat out Woodlan’s Grace Gabner (27.29) and Beiswanger (27.89).

The only other individual championship for the girls went to Mya Kunkler in the high jump. She cleared the 4 foot, 10 mark on her first attempt, to surpass Molly Muhlenkamp and Alexis Smith of Woodlan.

The 4x400 relay team of Aixa Lopez, Kunkler, Cash Hollowell and Makinsey Murphy finished first in 4 minutes, 21.19 seconds.

The boy’s only individual title came from Adam Alig. The JCHS junior ran a time of 15.58 seconds to set a new career best and capture first place in the 110 hurdles.

Alig also ran the third leg of the 4x100 relay team that took first place. Gabe Pinkerton, Caden Gambill and Garrett Hidy joined him to put out a time of 44.92 seconds.

The boys also claimed one second-place finish and four third-place finishes. The girls earned three of each.