Jay takes tune-up

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Round one went to the Patriots.

The Jets have three days to fix what went wrong.

Jay County High School’s boys basketball team remained undefeated in Allen County Athletic Conference play with a 52-31 win on Saturday against the Adams Central Flying Jets.

“We were patient offensively,” said JCHS coach Chris Krieg. Saturday’s tilt was a tune-up for the Patriots (8-3, 2-0 ACAC) and Jets (5-5, 2-1 ACAC), who meet in the conference tournament quarterfinal at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Adams Central.

“I felt like tonight we did what we had to do to win the basketball game on both ends of the floor,” Krieg added.

Jay County worked its offense almost to perfection in the first half. It constantly rotated the basketball around the Adams Central zone to get easy shots. They were accurate too, going 13-of-18 (72.2 percent) to take a commanding 28-13 lead at intermission.

Consecutive Ryan Schlechty buckets and a Landon Grimes basket helped the Patriots open a 14-6 lead in the first quarter, and after Parker Grimes swished a corner 3-pointer at the horn the Patriots opened a 17-8 advantage.

Then a seven-point swing in the second put the margin into double digits midway through the period.

“Offensive wise we were patient, we got great looks every time down the floor,” Krieg said. Adams Central, meanwhile, was just 33.3 percent (5-of-15) shooting in the first 16 minutes.

Jay County’s offensive production dwindled a little bit in the second half as it struggled at times around the basket. A 50-percent effort, including going scoreless on its four 3-point attempts, left the Patriots 60 percent from the floor for the game.

At the other end of the court, Jay County defended 6-foot, 8-inch senior forward Dylan Miller well, not letting him get the ball too close to the basket. While he was second on the team with nine points — Kevin Brown led the Jets with 11 — Miller only took six shots.

Four straight Parker Grimes points and three points the hard way from Schlechty pushed the Patriots’ advantage past 20 for the first time.

Grimes scored 10 of his game-high 13 points in the second half, leading a Patriot charge of eight players who scored. Schlechty was second on the team with nine, while Michael Schlechty, Landon Grimes and Matt Franks chipped in six points each.

Jay County finished with 13 assists on its 23 field goals, with Ryan Schlechty’s six helpers a game high.

“That is one thing about this group of kids is they share the ball,” Krieg said.

Round two of the Patriots-Jets battle is at 6 p.m. Tuesday, and Krieg enjoys the fact his team has the advantage. One thing he said his squad has to work on is keeping the Jet guards in front of them on defense.

But the pressure rests on Adams Central when it hosts Jay County in the quarterfinal.

“They have to figure out how they’re going to take away what we did to them,” Krieg said.



Junior varsity

Gavin Muhlenkamp scored nine of his 13 points in the third quarter in helping Jay County pad its lead in a 44-35 victory.

The Patriots (9-2) had a 3-point lead after each of the first two quarters — 9-6 and 17-14 — before Muhlenkamp took over. He accounted for all but four of the JCHS points as it outscored Adams Central 13-9 in the period for a 30-23 lead with one quarter to play.

Gavin Lambert scored a dozen points in support of Muhlenkamp.



Freshman

Solid defense in the second quarter erased a deficit and Jay County hung on for a 34-31 win.

The Patriots (5-4) trailed 13-6 after one period before not allowing a point in the second quarter. They did just enough in the final two quarters to get back above .500.

Adrek Pogue paced the Patriots with nine points, as Crosby Heniser, Trenton Alexander, Gavin Myers and Adam Muhlenkamp scored five points each.