By RYAN WALKER

Both of Bluffton’s swim teams had very different perspectives against conference rival South Adams Thursday night.

For starters, the Tigershark boys threw out the junior varsity squad as the varsity starters are preparing for the big Jay County Invitational on Saturday. The varsity team practiced at the Starfires pool before the meet instead.

Freshman Jackson Meyer swims in the 500-yard freestyle Thursday night at South Adams. He helped the boys’ team with a win in that event and led them to a 118-48 victory over the ACAC rival. (Photos by Ryan Walker)

That didn’t stop them from winning the contest 118-48, however, South Adams had just four total swimmers that left points on the board.

It was also a chance for head coach Justin Upgraft to see his future product in a varsity swim meet, trying to hold together an ACAC title streak that could hit 10 at the end of this year.

“It’s good to have meets like these just to put them in some of the workload that some of those varsity swimmers,” Upgraft said after the meet. “It’s just a different atmosphere, so seeing the guys come together, like, a lot of my varsity guys would come alongside those JV guys and coach them up, things like that. It’s fun to see.”

Freshman Anna Zurcher competes in the 200-yard IM. She helped the girls by winning the 100-yard butterfly and the 200-yard medley relay race.

The girls, who have fewer swimmers (eight total) than South Adams, lost their match 98-51.

Head coach Hunter Cunningham isn’t necessarily looking for her team to swim their best races, although some did Thursday night. Rather, she wants them to begin a month-long process of rough workouts to prepare for the sectional.

Having those tougher workouts now and throughout the season doesn’t give the swimmers bodies time to fully recover. That grind allows for a week’s worth of tapering, where the athletes can rest and be at their best for the conference and sectional meet at the end of the season.

Last year, Cunningham’s group had too much rest in December around the holidays and peaked at the wrong time. This season, she’s having the girls taper a bit later in the season to see if that will help.

It’s hard to avoid with a few days off for winter break, the weekend and Christmas day, and some of the swimmers went out of state for the holiday and weren’t in the pool.

“Having the holidays gave them a longer break off which tapered them a little bit,” Cunningham said. “Our goal is just to go back into practice and really get them going. We told them ‘You’ve got to work harder than ever so that way, you have something to taper.’”

Some of the team cut down their times against South Adams, but for the most part, they were down by a few seconds. Essentially, that’s a good thing.

“Most of them only added a few, two or three seconds, which we expected,” Cunningham said. “A few girls did drop time, which is not a great thing, but we’re just going to try and work them back up so that have something to taper. Overall, no one had a bad swim tonight.”

The ACAC meet this year falls on Jan. 19. The girls’ sectional will be on Feb. 2 for preliminary rounds and Feb 4. for the finals.

Both teams will be at the Jay County Invitational this weekend at 9 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 6.

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Individual winners:

Boys

• Graham Linderwell in the 200-yard freestyle.

• Clayton Brubaker in the 200-yard IM.

• Elija Robles in the diving events.

• Evan Klopfenstein in the 100-yard butterfly.

• Jackson Meyer in the 500-yard freestyle relay.

• Blake Reinhard, Ashton Arnett, Athan King and Isaac Wheeler in the 200-yard freestyle relay.

 • Griffin Linder well, Graham Linderwell, Braden Lemler and Wheeler in the 400-yard freestyle relay.

Girls

• Zoey Schmidt, Ellie Coyne, Anna Zurcher and Kierstynn Reed in the 200-yard medley relay.

• Zurcher in the 100-yard butterfly.