Patriots fall in 5

FORT WAYNE — The Patriots opened their season with a goal of winning their first sectional title in nearly a decade, and had aspirations of tournament success beyond that.
Their season ended far earlier than they hoped.
The New Haven Bulldogs fought off Jay County in the fifth and deciding game Thursday, handing the Patriots a 20-25, 25-20, 25-19, 18-25, 15-13 defeat in the opening round of the Class 4A Sectional 6 tournament at Fort Wayne South Side.
JCHS had defeated New Haven 25-22, 25-17 at the Heritage Invitational in August, but never seemed to find their groove despite winning a pair of games Thursday.
“They’re good enough to beat us. We knew that,” said Patriot coach Fred Medler, whose team’s last sectional title came in 2002. “We knew we’d have to play hard
“I really felt we got started well … in game one, and then we just kind of went a little flat. For the last half of game one, even though we won it, we were flat. We were flat in two. We were flat in three. We were flat most of the way through four, and then kind of regrouped and played hard. But by that time we had given them the momentum …”
Despite not being at their best, Jay County (17-16) still finished the fourth game on a 10-3 run. And it scored the opening two points in the fifth on kills from senior middle hitters Maria Murphy and Mariah Hornaday.
But the Bulldogs (11-18) ran off the next four points, the last of which came on an ace by freshman Ashley Greubel, and the Patriots never led again.
JCHS closed to within one point at 10-9, 12-11, 13-12, and finally at 14-13 when Hornaday blocked an attack by New Haven senior Chanlar Hall. On the next point, however, Hall tipped over Hornaday’s block and the ball landed on the floor in the midst of several diving Patriots to end the match.
Hall finished with 20 kills for the Bulldogs.
“Chanlar has been our go-to person all year long,” said New Haven coach Cassandra Steinbrunner. “She’s a real key player in our program and we really rely on her.
“I was really proud of the girls. I’ve known they could do it all season long, and finally just seeing them play to their potential was really exciting.”
The Bulldogs advance to play Huntington North in Saturday’s semifinal round at 11 a.m. The other semifinal match will pit Wayne against the host Archers, and the championship will be at 6 p.m.
Huntington North defeated defending champion Homestead 25-20, 25-17, 27-25 in Thursday’s second opening-round match.
The Patriots dominated New Haven early Thursday, jumping out to a 10-3 lead thanks in part to four Bulldog errors and a pair of aces from Hornaday. New Haven responded with a 9-2 run to take the lead, but JCHS bounced back to take the first game.
But after the Bulldogs finished the second game on a 6-1 run, including aces from Hannah Salerno and Courtney Tracey, they kept the momentum the rest of the way. New Haven scored six straight points to end the third game, and rebounded to win the fifth after the Patriots evened the match at two games apiece.
“They were confident,” said Medler. “And we were just second-guessing ourselves, and didn’t clean up the things that we talked about.
“Our passing wasn’t good, and so we were always out of system, which means our setter is chasing the ball off the net or somebody else has to set it. And when we did set that ball, we weren’t ready to do anything with it.”
A key for New Haven was its work against Hornaday’s jump serve. After giving up the two early aces, the Bulldogs were able to side-out JCHS on Hornaday’s first serve seven out of eight times.
“That was one of the big things we talked about,” said Steinbrunner. “We played Jay County earlier in the season, and we just talked about how when she was in the back row we had to take advantage of that. And it was a requirement to side-out the first ball she was serving. We couldn’t let them go on a run when she was serving.”
Hornaday led the Patriots with team highs of 15 kills and 15 digs. Hannah Ainsworth put up 35 assists, and Malarie Houck scored 12 service points.[[In-content Ad]]