Fighting for third

Some of the names and event assignments have changed.

The meet, though, looks like a mirror image of 2024.

Hosting the sectional preliminaries Thursday, the Jay County High School girls swim team set itself up to be in a battle for third place with Huntington North for the second consecutive season.

The Patriots project for 227 points, just behind the 242 for Huntington North. (Projections do not include diving.) Delta is heavily favored to win its third consecutive sectional title after earning No. 1 seeds in 10 out of 11 swimming events while Norwell projects for the runner-up finish again in the 11-team field.

JCHS edged Huntington North for the No. 3 spot by 4.5 points last season.

The sectional resumes Saturday with diving preliminaries at 9 a.m. Swimming and diving finals will follow at 1 p.m. (The top eight finishers from the preliminaries compete in championship races, with the next eight in consolation finals.)

Four Patriots qualified for championship races, with Lauren Fisher and Brooklyn Byrum each making it in a pair of events. They finished back-to-back in the 100-yard butterfly Thursday, with the former third in 1 minute, 5.77 seconds and the latter fourth in 1:06.07. The top two seeds were Annie Jackson of Delta at 59.7 and Kaydince Kalhoefer of Huntington North with a time of 1:04.14. Kaitlyn Fisher gave JCHS three swimmers in the championship race as she reached the wall in 1:07.6 for the No. 8 seed.

Byrum, a freshman, is also seeded seventh in the 200 individual medley. Fisher, a junior, took the No. 8 spot in the 50 freestyle, earning the last spot in the championship race by eight hundredths of a second ahead of Norwell freshman Emma Easley.

Senior Kenzie Huey turned in a time of 1:09.24 to earn the No. 5 seed in the 100 backstroke.

Jay County’s best relay effort came in the meet-ending 400 freestyle, with Aubrey Millspaugh, Sophia Hoevel, Lauren Fisher and Byrum earning the No. 3 seed in 3:57.5. They trailed Delta and Huntington North.

Sophia Hoevel, Lauren Fisher, Byrum and Huey picked up the No. 4 seed for the 200 medley relay in 2:01.44, and Ariel Beiswanger, Kaitlyn Fisher, Huey and Millspaugh were seventh in the 200 freestyle relay.

Advancing to swim in Saturday’s consolation finals were Millspaugh (ninth – 200 individual medley, 12th – 100 backstroke), Avery Wentz (ninth – 100 backstroke), Kaitlyn Fisher (10th – 200 individual medley), Sophia Hoevel (10th – 100 freestyle, 11th – 200 freestyle) and Beiswanger (11th – 500 freestyle, 13th – 200 freestyle).