JEFFERSONVILLE — As expected, Jeffersonville’s boys and Floyd Central’s girls won at Thursday’s dual meet between the Red Devils and Highlanders.

While displaying incredible speed and depth, Jeff’s boys had an easy time beating Floyd Central — looking to unseat the two-time defending sectional champion Devils as the top boys’ program in the area — 132-53.

However, Jeffersonville’s girls pushed the dominant, five-time defending sectional champion Highlanders to the brink before Floyd prevailed 102-84.



BOYS’ RACE

Jeffersonville won all but two races — both won by Highlander senior Oscar Anderson — and took the top two spots in five of the 12 events.

The Red Devils took the top three spots in the diving competition, which was won by Levi Mays, and the 100 butterfly, won by Evan Lopez.

Jeff also took the top two spots in the 200 freestyle relay.

“Our depth is tough,” Jeff coach Keith Gast said. “I’d hate to have to coach against a team as deep as we are. We have some guys on our B relays that want to be on our A relays and that helps us out. Our depth and our speed with our [No.] 2 and 3 guys is tough to match.”

“Keith just reloaded with this group,” Floyd coach Joe Perkins said. “We lost a lot of close races, but I was impressed with how good [the Red Devils] are.”

Tim “T” Martin won four races for Jeff, including individually in the 50 and 100 freestyle. He had to hold off exchange student teammate Karol Schmuck in both events.

The other Red Devil to win multiple individual events was Zach Daily in the 200 and 500 freestyle. After beating Floyd’s Marc McCormick by just over a second in the 200, Daily came from behind to beat Eli Anderson by .02 in the 500.

After 20 lengths of the pool, third-place Tyler Sariscsany was just two seconds back in the most thrilling event of the night.

“Zach Daily has a plus that not a lot of guys have. He gets to chase [Martin] around the pool in practice. Before the 500, I told him he was going to have to gut it out in the end against Eli. Obviously, he did that really well. The last 50 [yards], I guess he wanted to prove to me that he can sprint.”

“That was the best race of the night, for sure,” Perkins added. “I told Eli after the race, ‘I guess you won’t breathe every stroke again, will you?’”



GIRLS’ RACE

For a while, it looked like Jeffersonville, which finished fourth at last year’s sectional, might have something for the defending champions.

The Red Devils led through eight events, but Floyd won the final six events.

After Jeff won four of the first five events, Meg Taylor got the Highlanders’ comeback started with a victory in the 100 freestyle. However, Jeff took second and third place to keep a 52-42 advantage.

Next, Amy McCormick and Sarah Taylor took the top two places in the 500 free to pull the Highlanders within 65-61. Floyd then took its first lead of the night at 71-69 when Maryn Meldrum, Meg Taylor, Sarah Taylor and McCormick gave the Highlanders a win in the 200 freestyle relay.

Top-two sweeps by Layah Jones and Jessica Pinnick in the 100 backstroke and by Meldrum and Lauren Batliner in the 100 breaststroke clinched the victory.

A Highlanders’ 400 free relay team of Meg and Sarah Taylor, Jones and McCormick then finished it out for Floyd.

“We knew when Jeff swam New Albany [last week] that they learned quite a bit about themselves,” Perkins said. “Anything that could go wrong did in the first half of the race. Our girls stepped up in the second half and were even better than I thought they would be.”

“Our goal was to keep within 30 points,” Gast said. “We were front loaded, so we took an early lead and held on for a while. We just didn’t have the numbers in the end.”

As well as being on two winning relays, Meg Taylor also won a pair of individual events — the 100 free and the 200 free.

Karlee Dempsey helped Jeff get the early lead with wins in the 200 medley relay, the 200 individual medley and the 100 butterfly. The Devils took their biggest lead after Alexa Waldrip won the diving event and Demsey won the 100 butterfly.

Waldrip was also on the medley relay team with Demsey, Samantha Glover and Elizabeth Browne, who also won the 50 freestyle.

“With leadership like that, toward the end of the season we should be in good shape,” Gast said.