Offense fizzles

BLUFFTON — The Patriots scored 14 points in the opening quarter.

That’s was their good news of the night.

The bad?

They only scored 14 points after that.

Jay County High School’s offense disappeared after the opening quarter as it missed a chance for a third consecutive win Friday in a 34-28 loss to the Bluffton Tigers.

“We just missed the shots,” said JCHS coach Chris Krieg, whose team had won back-to-back games over Heritage and South Adams following a 10-game losing streak. “We got the same looks. We hit them early, did not hit them late. … We just have to finish. … Unfortunately we did not.”

Jay County (4-11, 1-3 Allen County Athletic Conference) simply could not find a way to score over the final three quarters, shooting 6-of-20 (30 percent) with 11 turnovers during that span. It went without a point for the first 6:45 of the second quarter before Ethan Dirksen finally scored on a drive to the hoop at the 1:15 mark.

Fortunately for the Patriots, Bluffton (10-5, 5-0 ACAC) didn’t fair much better offensively. The home team managed just four second-quarter points and was clinging to a five-point lead late in the game.

But the Tigers were able to finish things off at the foul line, scoring all of their six fourth-quarter points from the stripe. JCHS, meanwhile, had a pair of turnovers in the closing minute before Bennett Weitzel hit a 3-pointer with 3.5 seconds left for the final margin.

“Our effort was great this evening,” said Krieg. “We hustled. We busted our tail for 32 minutes. We battled. We fought hard. We just couldn’t score inside. We missed shots we’d been hitting the last couple of games.”

The Patriots hit some shots in the opening quarter, jumping out to a 9-4 lead behind senior Brayden Sprunger and sophomore Ethan Dirksen. Sprunger buried a triple from deep on the left wing as part of that opening spurt and assisted with a long outlet pass to Dirksen for a layup.

But Bluffton’s Hayden Nern single-handedly matched JCHS, scoring all of his team’s 14 first-quarter points on the way to his game-high 22.

The Tigers, who outscored JCHS 10-1 at the foul line, wrapped up at least a share of the ACAC regular-season title with the win. They close conference play Feb. 8 against Heritage.

Sprunger led the way with 10 points for Jay County. Dirksen had eight and Weitzel scored six for the squad, which saw limited minutes from guards Gavin Muhlenkamp and Quinn Faulkner who have each been dealing with illnesses this week.

“Those two kids probably played a total of 12, 15 minutes of the game,” said Krieg. “So we had to do some adjustments. … That hurt us this evening.”

There’s no break for the Patriots, who will be right back in action on their home floor tonight against Luke Brown and the Blackford Bruins (10-4). They rank fourth in the state in scoring at 78.7 points per game and are coming off of a 71-36 victory Friday over Eastbrook.

“They want to score points,” said Krieg. “We will slow the game down, because we have to. That’s our goal.”



Junior varsity

Jay County saw a double-digit lead almost disappear but held on for a 43-38 victory over the Tigers.

Thanks to a 13-5 advantage in the third quarter, the Patriots led 35-22 heading into the final period. Bluffton cut its deficit to just three points with 1:04 to play, but a hoop from Adam Muhlenkamp with 10 seconds left sealed the JCHS win.

Josh Dowlen’s 16 points led the way for the Patriots. Muhlenkamp followed with seven points.

The Tigers got 18 points from Kaden Gerber.



Freshman

A shutout third quarter helped the Patriots to a 25-22 victory over Bluffton.

Jay County struggled to score after building a 20-14 halftime lead, but had