Patriots go 1-2

The young Patriots aren’t quite where they would like to be. But they’re making strides.
Jay County High School’s volleyball team finished 1-2 at Saturday’s Jay County Invitational, winning its opening match 25-12, 25-20 over Marion and then dropping a couple of close matches 25-22, 25-23 to Northeastern and 25-19, 25-21 to Norwell.
“We showed a tremendous amount of growth,” said JCHS coach Fred Medler, whose team struggled in Thursday’s season opener against Class 3A No. 5 Delta. “I thought we battled against a team that had five seniors playing against us. ...
“We didn’t start well against (Norwell), but we finished well in game one and (played) well in all of game two.
“We’re growing. That’s the good part.”
Norwell, a team with six seniors and five juniors on the varsity roster, turned in a perfect day to win the invitational and improve to 6-0 on the year.
“We didn’t allow too many runs,” said Norwell coach Mark Campbell. “One of our primary focuses is to stop runs of three and not allow a team to build any type of a lead. And we did a fairly decent job at limiting those opportunities.”
After trading points with Marion early in its first match of the day, Jay County (1-3) took control with Katie Aker leading the way. The junior racked up three kills during a 5-0 Patriot run that gave the home team the lead for good.
Aker finished the match with 11 kills on the way to a team-high 17 for the tournament.
“She can do that,” said Medler. “Her confidence is a lot better this year. … She’s hitting the ball well.”
Rachel Ferguson had a strong service match against the Giants, finishing the opening game with an ace and totalling eight service points and three aces for the match.
“That’s her genre,” Medler said. “She’s got that float serve. She can drill them. She can drop it in about 10 feet shorter than the one she just drilled. … She served strong in that Marion (match). When it was kind of tight, she just blew it wide open.”
Hannah Ainsworth, the lone JCHS senior, finished with team highs of 48 assists and 19 digs to go along with 16 service points and six aces. Ferguson tallied 19 service points and six aces, Aker added 17 digs and Bre McIntire had 15 kills.

Junior varsity
Jay County defeated Marion 25-14, 23-25, 15-8 and Northeastern 25-13, 13-25, 15-8 before falling to Norwell 25-16, 19-25, 15-10 in the deciding match.
Ali Inman paced the Patriots (2-2) with 19 points, 17 digs and 10 aces. Courtney Finnerty had 12 service points and 16 assists, Lucy Hemmelgarn totaled 18 kills and 4.5 blocks and Mallory Marshall finished with 11 kills and 11 digs.[[In-content Ad]]