2024-25 Jay County boys swim preview

Matches to watch

Tuesday, Dec. 17, vs. Delta

Delta claimed the top spot in the sectional last year, beating Norwell by 70 points and the Patriot by 203. This regular season matchup can give JCHS an idea of where they can place swimmers to try and steal points.

Friday-Saturday, Jan. 10-11, in JCHS Invite

The Jay County High School Invitational provides the Patriots with an opportunity to compete against a group of talent and see how they would fare in a bigger field.

2023-24 season

While dealing with lower numbers at 14 athletes, the Patriots continued to decline in the sectional meet, placing 10th with 115 points. Only one tanker, Matthew Fisher, made the sectional final (outside of diving), while it had five swimmers represent in nine events. Jay County’s struggles also showed up in dual meets as Jay County finished with a 3-10 record. In the Allen County Athletic Conference meet, the Patriots came up 15 points short of runner-up Adams Central, but were safe of the bottom spot, beating South Adams by 136. Joesph Dow’s third-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle was the JCHS best.

Projected events

Bryden Carter – Diving

Kamdyn Carter – Breaststroke/freestyle

Lincoln Clamme – Breaststroke

Matthew Fisher – Butterfly/Backstroke

Cooper Glentzer – Distance freestyle

David Keen – Butterfly

Max Klopfenstein – Freestyle

Grayson Swoveland– Sprint freestyle

Carson Westgerdes – IM/Butterfly/Breaststroke

Peyton Yowell – Sprint freestyle

Top returners

Matthew Fisher

Eighth in sectional backstroke

Peyton Yowell

13th in sectional 100-yard freestyle

David Keen

14th in sectional 200-yard freestyle

Lincoln Clamme

15th in sectional breaststroke

Top departures

Joseph Dow

10th in sectional 200-yard freestyle

Brason Glassford

Eighth in sectional diving

Fast facts

•The Patriots last won the sectional meet in the 2001-02 season. Jay County has consistently declined in the postseason meet since the 2018-19 year when they finished fifth. 

•The two Jay County freshmen, Carson Westgerdes and Cooper Glentzer, hold ACAC records at the junior high level. They both competed on the 300-yard freestyle team that set the standard, while Glentzer also set records in the 200 and 400 freestyles.

•JCHS returns its only swimmer to make the sectional finals last year in Matthew Fisher.

Coach Matt Slavik says

“Coming into this season, we’re pretty fortunate, we’ve acquired more freshmen than what we lost. Our team size is up a little bit. We’ve got diving filled with a returner Bryden (Carter). We’ve got a couple of freshmen that will come in and contribute right off the bat in Cooper Glentzer and Carson Westgerdes. Plus we have pretty much everybody back other than Joseph Dow, so it should fit in nicely.  We’ve got a strong junior group, so that helps. I look forward to seeing a lot of improvement this year with the boys. We’ve been in the weight room for a while. We’re seeing a lot of strength improvements and swimming improvements. So I’m excited. I feel like we are going to have a much improved squad as opposed to the last couple of years, just with the improvements we’ve seen with our current boys, and the influx of some talented freshmen.”