February 1, 2018 at 3:00 a.m.

Jay dominates Owls to advance

Patriots to meet Huskies in semifinal on Friday
Jay dominates Owls to advance
Jay dominates Owls to advance

Copyright 2018, The Commercial Review

All Rights Reserved

HARTFORD CITY — Kirk Comer cleared his bench in the second quarter.

It wasn’t because his team was that far behind.

The Patriots were that far ahead.

The Jay County High School girls basketball team dominated from start to finish Wednesday in a 74-30 thrashing of the Burris Owls in the Class 3A Sectional 24 tournament quarterfinal at Blackford.

“Those are hard games to play,” said JCHS coach Kirk Comer, whose team has won four straight games and improves to 16-8 on the year. “You just try to keep your intensity. We tried to not embarrass anybody and kept things in the half court.”

Jay County, which is playing in Class 3A for the first time in more than a decade, advances to the semifinal at approximately 7:30 p.m. Friday against No. 10 Hamilton Heights. The Huskies (17-7) knocked off host Blackford 65-26 in the second quarterfinal game Wednesday evening.

“It’s hard,” Comer added. “You just hope it doesn’t hurt you going into the next game. We just have to be mentally focused because the next game is going to be a really tough game.”

Jay County jumped out to a 14-0 lead, a hot start that included six turnovers by the Owls (7-16) that led to fast-break points for the Patriots. Kendra Muhlenkamp scored the first basket of the game off the opening tip, and the next time down the court she passed to a wide open Hanna Ault in the corner for an uncontested 3-pointer.

Ault led all players with 18 points, and Muhlenkamp finished with five points.

The Patriots later led 19-2 and went into the quarter break ahead 25-4. They scored the first nine points of the second quarter for a 34-4 advantage, which allowed Comer to empty his bench.

From there, Gwen Omstead scored nine consecutive points — it was all she had in the game — for Jay County as it headed into halftime out front 43-8.

Ault had six more points in the third quarter in helping Jay County to its biggest advantage, 52-12, before giving way to the reserve players for the remainder of the contest.

Mikele Suman and Grace Saxman both had career highs in scoring with eight and seven points respectively, and Kendal Garringer was the game’s leading rebounder with nine.

“Everybody got a lot of playing time and they got tournament experience,” Comer said “You can’t teach that. Hopefully that will help us Friday night.”

Eleven out of the 12 players who saw action scored a point, with Briana Muhlenkamp the lone Patriot who didn’t score. But she is recovering from an ankle injury and sat out for most of the second quarter and all of the second half.

Jay County shot better than 50 percent from the field (29-of-57) as the 21 turnovers it forced created easy opportunities at the other end.

“We got a lot of easy shots but you’re going to shoot a better percentage when you shoot a lot of layups,” Comer said.

The Owls, on the other hand, shot just 18.6 percent (9-of-48) from the field and made just one of 11 3-pointers. DeKayla Elliot led the Owls with 13 points, seven of which came from the free-throw line in the second half.

Comer said the Patriots will have to be at their best on Friday if they hope to get past the Huskies, who can make things difficult offensively by running multiple defenses. On the other hand, he says his defense will have to be top notch against a patient offense.

“I think we’re good enough to beat Hamilton Heights,” he said. “I think we’re good enough to beat anybody in (Class) 3A … we just have to play at our level. We have to play at a high level, which we’ve done on and off. We haven’t been consistent at it, that’s what worries me. We have to be consistent now.

“There are seven games to get to the state championship and win a state championship. We marked one of them off tonight. Our goal is to see how many of those seven we can get marked off.”
PORTLAND WEATHER

Events

August

SU
MO
TU
WE
TH
FR
SA
27
28
29
30
31
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
31
1
2
3
4
5
6
SUN
MON
TUE
WED
THU
FRI
SAT
SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
27 28 29 30 31 1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 1 2 3 4 5 6

To Submit an Event Sign in first

Today's Events

No calendar events have been scheduled for today.

250 X 250 AD