Good things come from loss

It generally takes a mistake-free effort in order to have a chance to beat a rival from Delaware County on the volleyball court.
The Patriots weren’t perfect Thursday, but they did enough good things against Delta to leave their coach excited about the season.
Jay County put together its strongest run behind the serve of Lizzy Schoenlein and Kylie Osborne in the opening game and led briefly early in the second and third. But the Patriots couldn’t keep up with the visiting Eagles in a 25-21, 25-16, 25-13 season-opening loss.
Delaware County schools have won a combined 30 volleyball state championships since 1997, including titles for Delta in 2001, ’03 and ’09.
“I was pleased,” said JCHS coach Fred Me­dler, whose team will host Marion, Northeastern and Anderson in the Jay County Invitational on Saturday. “They had to play good in order to get us, and they did play good. …
“We played our hearts out — played hard, played together, had fun. And we’re disappointed, and that’s the good part. We’re disappointed we didn’t do better than what we did. But my goodness I thought we played well.”
The Patriots (0-1) fell behind 15-8 in the opening game before Schoenlein, their freshman setter, stepped behind the service line. She tallied three aces in four-point run, mixing up her long and short serves to keep Delta off balance.
The Eagles (2-0), pushed their advantage back to five points before more aggressive serving from Kylie Osborne pulled Jay County even at 18 points apiece.
“A couple of our servers early missed a serve because we were trying to be aggressive and it just wasn’t there … and then they got tentative on the serve,” said Medler. “We just kept telling them, ‘Get back there and take a chance.’ … And (Schoenlein and Osborne) took chances when they got back there.”However, Delta reclaimed the advantage when the Patriots were called for a net violation and it went on to finish off the opening game on a McKenzie Sulfridge kill. JCHS had brief leads early in the second and third games, but never scored more than two consecutive points the rest of the way.
Marissa Elam led the Eagles, who used runs of 5-0 and 9-2 to take control in the second and third games respectively, to their victory with 15 kills. German foreign-exchange student Emily Langguth had nine kills, and Kaylee Nichols added seven. Teaghan Dishman had 18 digs from the libero position.
Madison Bergren put up 37 assists, often teaming with her club teammate Elam on quick sets that kept the Patriots off balance.
“Madison Bergren really set a nice match tonight,” said Delta coach Heidi Zickgraf, whose team opened its season Tuesday with a 25-8, 25-17 victory over Madison-Grant. “I had a conversation with her before the match about just getting other people involved and she really listened and did the job I wanted her to.
“Our depth is going to be key for us. A couple of our hitters who were big for us on Tuesday struggled tonight, and we had somebody else step up, so that was good.”
In addition to her match-high three aces, Schoenlein also paced the Patriots with 13 assists and 12 digs. Osborne led the offensive attack with seven kills, and she and Abby Wendel followed Schoenlein with six digs apiece. Ava Kunkler added four kills.
Despite the loss, Medler had a lot of good things to say about his senior-less squad.
“Lizzy (Schoenlein), for her first time on the varsity court, boy, the potential is all there,” he said. “The reaction time is all there.
“Ava (Kunkler) has come on fire. She’s flying around everywhere. …
“Mal (Malarie Houck) has stepped up in the leadership role and is just calming the kids down and pulling them together …
“We got just a group of good, young kids wanting to play volleyball.”
Jay County dropped the junior varsity match to the Eagles, 25-8, 25-17.[[In-content Ad]]