Rally falls short against Argylls

The Patriots figured it out late in the second game.
They started covering the setter tip, and Britlyn Dues got hot from the left side. They rallied in the third game as well, but with one of the best teams in Class 2A across the net they couldn’t take control.
Jay County High School’s volleyball team took the second game, but dropped the third by four points and wasn’t able to force a fifth in a 25-16, 22-25, 25-21, 25-15 loss Tuesday to the Class 2A No. 4 Madison-Grant Argylls in the season opener for both squads.
“They’re experienced. They have a good outside and a couple of good middles and a great setter,” said JCHS coach Fred Medler, whose Patriots return just two starters from the 2015 squad that went 27-6. “We just have that little bit of inexperience right here at this part of the year.
“I thought we were playing with them most of the night. There were just stretches, a run of four or five or eight points … This bunch is going to have to stay away from those eight-point runs. When they took control of games, they got a five- or six- or seven-point run against us and we weren’t able to shut it down.”
That was true of the first game, when Madison-Grant rattled off 10 straight points for a 20-9 lead. In the second, however, it was the Patriots who made a run.
Trailing 19-14, Jay County got back-to-back points on tips by Kaelyn Weaver and Britlyn Dues. After a service error, Dues rattled off kills on three of the next four points to spark an 8-0 run.
The Argylls staved off a pair off game-point opportunities for JCHS only to have their next serve sail long to give the home team the game, evening the match at one apiece.
“I thought Jay did a much better job of picking up some of the setter dumps that we were trying to put in because our best attackers weren’t in the front row,” said Madison-Grant coach Bob Holloway. “I give them a lot of credit for digging up some balls that we got away with earlier …”
Jay County made a similar late run in the third game, closing to within one from a 20-15 deficit. But a service error put the ball back in the Argylls’ hands, Sloane Stewart tipped home a kill and Hannah Alcala smacked an ace to put the state-ranked squad back in the driver’s seat.
Madison-Grant, which won a sectional title last season before falling to eventual state champion Wapahani in four games in the regional, never trailed in the fourth game. It built a 7-2 lead and remained ahead by at least four points the rest of the way, finishing the match on a couple of Patriot errors.
Senior setter Kenzie Stitt, a four-year starter for the Argylls, set the tone, dishing out 33 assists, recording five aces and catching JCHS off guard with tips to the tune of seven kills.
“She usually knows what to do and when to do things,” said Holloway. “She’s pretty good at knowing who to set, when to set. She knows what the situations are. … That just comes from experience. … She made a lot of difference because of her decision making and her leadership.”
Stewart recorded match highs of 17 kills and six blocks for Madison-Grant, and Maddie Barnhart added 13 kills for the squad that lost just one senior from last season. Kanani Price came up with 23 digs.
Patriot senior Abby Barcus was right behind Stewart with 16 kills to go along with a team-high five digs. Dues, who left late in game three after colliding with Barcus, added seven kills.
Medler noted the importance of the game-two attacking blitz from Dues and the need for the team to have multiple weapons to complement Barcus, who was an All-American this summer.
“She has to get hot,” he said. “We’ve got to have more than one option. … It’s a growth process for all of us.”
Kailee Denney recorded 17 assists and 10 digs for the Patriots, who will visit the Class 3A No. 3 Delta Eagles on Thursday before returning home Saturday to host the Patriot Invitational.
The JCHS junior varsity team fell to Madison-Grant in straight sets. Statistics from that match were unavailable.