Jay girls rout Raiders

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Kirk Comer wasn’t afraid to say it.

He’s disappointed with the way his team played.

In spite of his analysis, the Patriots march on once again.

The Jay County High School girls basketball team opened the Allen County Athletic Conference tournament on Tuesday with a 62-31 drubbing of the Southern Wells Raiders.

The Patriots (11-6), who are three-time defending ACAC tournament champions since joining the conference in the 2014-15 season, will host Adams Central in the tournament semifinal at 6 p.m. Thursday.

The semifinal round was originally scheduled for Friday, but because of the threat of inclement weather it was moved up one day.

“I’m really disappointed in the way we came out,” said Comer, whose team defeated Adams Central 64-44 Dec. 8. “We weren’t mentally focused and ready to go. I’m really disappointed in that after the last two games.

“We didn’t have the same intensity as we had against Concordia and Bluffton. We should have that intensity, or more, going into the ACAC tournament.”

Jay County jumped out to a 12-0 lead thanks to six Southern Wells turnovers and a pair of Raider misses. Twice, Briana Muhlenkamp raced down the court off a steal. The first time she laid it up for a basket and the second she dished a pass to Shelby Caldwell.

Midway through the opening quarter the Raiders (6-12) finally hit the scoreboard as Sarah Bothast put back her own miss.

After cleaning up a bit of its miscues offensively, Southern Wells trimmed the deficit to 16-11 thanks to four more Bothast points and a triple from Kelli Neff.

But that’s as close as the Raiders got. A six-point spurt in the second quarter — Hanna Ault, Gwen Omstead and Caldwell each had baskets — put Jay County ahead by double digits and it stayed there for the remainder of the game.

Comer’s biggest concern was the shot selection. Jay County was 25-of-55 (45.5 percent) for the game, including a 7-for-23 effort from long range.

“I thought it was a lot of bad shots,” he said. “We have to go inside and back outside to get good shots, especially against a zone.”

During both wins against Concordia and Bluffton, the Patriots had stellar inside-outside ball movement that created open looks around the perimeter.

Such was not the case Tuesday.

“Instead of attacking the seams, attacking the paint and then getting a shot after attacking the paint, we settled for passing the ball around (the perimeter) and getting and open look and shooting,” Comer said. “It’s not in rhythm. We have to go inside and go back out to be in rhythm.

Jay County’s lead reached 20 points just past the midway point of the third quarter on a Kendal Garringer 3-pointer, and Hannah Phillips scored on a fast break assist from Kendra Muhlenkamp nearly two minutes into the fourth quarter as the Patriot advantage ballooned to 30 points.

“I thought in the second half we did a better job (on defense),” Comer said. “We played nothing but half-court, man-to-man defense in the second half.

“Thought we did a good job keeping them in front (and) helping. I don’t think they got a lot of easy baskets.”

Caldwell had a game-high 19 points to go with her four rebounds. Kendra Muhlenkamp was second on the team with 10 points, and Ault finished with nine points. Omstead contributed eight points and a game-high six boards and Phillips had six points.

“We need more depth,” omer said, proud of the way Omstead, Phillips and Dillon (three points) played. “That is huge … it just makes us a lot harder to guard.”