Patriots handle Starfires

It took a little while for Jay County to get going in the opening two games against South Adams.
But once the Patriots got into a rhythm, the Starfires had a difficult time slowing them down.
Jay County High School’s volleyball team cruised to its 17th win of the season Tuesday, beating Allen County Athletic Conference rival South Adams in three games.
The Patriots (17-3, 4-1 ACAC) beat the visiting Starfires, 25-17, 25-18, 25-16.
“We didn’t play excellent, but we played hard and consistent,” said JCHS coach Fred Medler, who was honored before the game for his 25 years of coaching. “Our serving game was off a little tonight. We have to pick that part of our game up, but overall (it was a) pretty good win.”
South Adams (8-11, 2-3 ACAC) got out to early 4-1 leads in both game one and game two, but wasn’t able to hang on. Jay County went on runs to take a 6-5 advantage, thanks to attack errors by the Starfires in game one and kills by Abby Wendel in the second game.
Kylie Osborne, who had a team-high 14 kills for Jay County, took over in the opening game with the score 9-8 in favor of the Starfires. The junior had back-to-back kills to give Jay County the lead. Cindy Int’Groen answered with one of her team-high six kills for South Adams, knotting the score at 10 — the sixth tie of the game.
Jay County took an 11-10 lead on another attack by Osborne, and added one more in the Patriots’ string of four straight points.
“Osborne was on tonight,” said Medler, whose team is one victory away from matching its win total from 2013. “She was hitting very well.”
South Adams got back within one, 14-13, but Jay County went on a five-point run on two straight blocks by Abby Wendel and Abby Barcus. The two Abbys both finished with a pair of blocks and seven kills.
“We’re learning that when we put the ball on the ground, that’s when we win games,” said SAHS coach Amie Sprunger. “We can’t be the team that waits for mistakes to happen. We need to be the team that makes them make mistakes, and we didn’t do that.”
After seeing their lead vanish in the second game, the Starfires went back and forth with the Patriots over the next six points, taking advantage of back-to-back service errors by Jay County.
The Patriots put the service errors behind them, grabbing a three-point lead, 11-8, on a kill by Barcus and an ace by Bre McIntire. Eight points later with Jay County ahead 15-12, South Adams took advantage of a pair of JCHS errors and one of Julia Grabau’s two kills.
But, Jay County got momentum back in its favor, going on a six-point run aided by a pair of aces from Barcus and mishaps by South Adams to get a 21-15 lead.
“Jay County definitely has a little height on us and they definitely have age on us,” said Sprunger of the Patriot defense, which had six blocks on the night. “Age makes a difference, but there comes a point when discipline takes over and we just have to work on that.
“We have to work on being more disciplined and putting the ball on the ground.”
Jay County carried its momentum from the second set into the third, scoring the game’s first four points. After trading the next 10 points, the Patriots went on their second run of a half dozen points, opening the game up to lead 15-6. South Adams cut the deficit to 18-11 on a service error, Int’Groen kill and an ace by Lauren Smith. Britlyn Dues notched her only two kills of the match to help the Patriots re-take an eight-point advantage, 22-13, but three straight points got the Starfires within six.
McIntire found an open back left corner of the Starfire defense, giving the serve back to Jay County, which put away South Adams on an attack error and Osborne’s 14th kill.
Medler and the Patriots are looking to seek revenge for one of its three losses on the season when it travels to face top-ranked Wes-Del on Thursday. The Warriors beat the Patriots in three games Sept. 13 in Noblesville.
“We hope it becomes a really good battle,” Medler said of the match with the Class 1A No. 1 Warriors. “That is in our best interest … It becomes a really good battle and we make them believe we can stick with them.
“We have a shot. We just have to block better than we did and be smarter with some of the shots that we hit.”

Junior varsity
After dropping the first game 25-20, the Jay County junior varsity squad took the second by the same score. The Patriots couldn’t put away game three, however, as the Starfires won the third game 15-8 to take the match.
Dues recorded team highs in kills (eight), digs (five) and shared the team-lead in aces (three). Audrey Shreve and Kady Finnerty both had three aces, and Alli Campbell notched 16 assists.