Ault leads shooting barrage

WOODBURN — The Patriots missed their first shot of the game.

Too bad for the host Warriors it wasn’t a sign of things to come.

The Jay County High School girls basketball team shot better than 50 percent from the field, made nine 3-pointers and forced the Woodlan Warriors into making 29 turnovers Friday in an 82-39 thrashing in the Allen County Athletic Conference opener for both teams.

“Overall it was a really good performance,” said JCHS coach Kirk Comer, who noted he was disappointed with the start and the fact his team missed 21 shots of the two-point variety. Several were on open layups.

“We shot the ball better than we had all year,” added Comer, whose team scored the most points in a game since an 86-32 drubbing of Muncie Southside Nov. 14, 2008, the same year the Patriots went undefeated during the regular season. “We met every goal we had tonight.”

Hanna Ault, who continues to have career performances in her senior season, said getting the first conference win set the tone for the season.

“It’s really exciting just because we needed to come out with a good start to the conference,” said Ault, who led all players with a career-high 31 points.

Ault was 13-of-24 from the field and made four of her seven shots from the 3-point line. Her first was in the opening quarter to make it 4-3 Woodlan, then midway through the period she had her second from the right corner on an assist from Kendra Muhlenkamp.

The senior then added a triple from the left corner on a Shelby Caldwell assist, and sank her fourth early in the second half to give Jay County (3-2, 1-0 ACAC) a 40-18 advantage.

“I’ve got to make it fun,” Ault said of how the year she’s having thus far. Through four games she was averaging 15.8 points per game, doubling it on Friday. “Having a team like this it just helps to keep the intensity up and just keep going.”

Caldwell, who led the Patriots with seven rebounds to go with her two assists, drained a pair of third-quarter 3-pointers, and Hanna Dillon swished two 3-pointers in the final quarter.

“I didn’t think we forced them tonight,” Comer said. The Patriots were 9-of-16 (56.3 percent) from long range and shot 53.3 percent from the field for the game. “We were able to set our feet and get our shot up in rhythm. If we can do that we are pretty good shooters. We were able to do that more tonight.”

Caldwell made eight of her nine field-goal attempts and both of her free throws to finish with 20 points. Muhlenkamp chipped in a dozen points and Dillon contributed nine.

Woodlan (3-5, 0-1 ACAC) scored the first four points of the game, but the Jay County responded with the next 13 and never looked back.

As the game went on, the Patriots’ defense got stronger, forcing nearly a turnover a minute during the first half, including eight in the second quarter. Jay County also had a 16-4 edge in scoring during the period.

The third quarter was perhaps the best of the night for Jay County. The defense coerced Woodlan into turning the ball over 10 times as the Patriots were able to explode for 28 points, its highest single-quarter scoring of the season.

Sophomore Addison Bayman scored 18 points to lead the Warriors.



Junior varsity

Two players reached double figures as Jay County opened its conference play with a 38-30 victory.

The Patriots (4-1, 1-0 ACAC) had a 9-3 advantage after the first quarter and took a 20-15 lead into halftime. Much like their varsity counterparts, they had a strong third quarter by holding the Warriors to just five points for get out front 32-20 heading into the final period.

Mikele Suman scored 13 points to lead Jay County, which also got a dozen from Macey Weitzel. Kendal Garringer chipped in five points while Aubrie Schwieterman and Hanna Dillon had three points each.