Patriot swim returns to form at Jay Invite

It was a day of climbing back toward where they want to be for the Patriots.

Their boys picked up a victory after having no one in the top eight a year earlier. Their girls returned to near the top of the standings after a year in the middle.

Freshman Cooper Glentzer earned a pair of victories to lead the hosts in Saturday’s Jay County Invitational while the girls team finished second and the boys placed fourth.

Joelle Kaup and Carson Fullenkamp led the way for Fort Recovery’s squads.

The JCHS girls returned to the runner-up spot they held behind Oak Hill in 2023 again after placing fifth a year ago. They scored 335 points to finish 13 behind the champions and well ahead of third-place Centerville (269) in the 14-team field.

Glentzer and fellow freshman Carson Westgerdes led the Patriot boys, who were ninth in 2024, to 228 points for fourth behind Bluffton (543), Centerville (411) and Oak Hill (351) in the field of a dozen teams.

Fort Recovery’s teams both finished in 10th place, with the girls scoring 95 points and the boys scoring 44.

Glentzer and Westgerdes went head-to-head with a pair of Bluffton rivals in the 200-yard freestyle as both schools put two swimmers in the top four. Glentzer led the whole way beating Rhett Gerber of the Tigers by nearly two seconds in 1 minutes, 56.48 seconds. Westgerdes was less than a half second behind Bluffton’s Griffin Linderwell as he placed fourth in 2:02.22.

In the 500 freestyle, Glentzer dominated from the start, swimming the first 50 yards nearly 1.5 seconds faster and Linderwell and pulling away for nearly a 13-second win in 5:20.45.

Westgerdes added a fourth-place effort in the 100 freestyle in 55.24 with teammate Peyton Yowell right behind him in 56.36. Yowell was also fifth in the 50 freestyle.

Avery Wentz led the JCHS girls, who had sixth swimmers finish in the top six in at least one event. She trailed only Lapel’s Katie Stephenson as she took the runner-up spot with her time of 1:10.92 in the 100 backstroke.

Senior Joelle Kaup’s second-place finish in 1:06.3 in the 100 butterfly paced the Fort Recovery girls. She added a time of 2:16.92 to take third in the 200 freestyle.

Carson Fullenkamp topped the charts for the FRHS boys by placing third in the 100 butterfly in 1:03.71.

Jay County’s girls stacked up finishes from fourth through seven place to help their team effort, with Ariel Beiswanger finishing fourth in the 500 freestyle and seventh in the 200 freestyle.

Brooklyn Byrum finished fourth in the 100 butterfly, Aubrey Millspaugh and Kenzie Huey were fifth in the 200 individual medley and 100 backstroke, respectively, and Sophia Hoevel placed sixth in both the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle.