Out of sync

On one hand, the Patriots didn’t play very well this week.

On the other, they still came away with two wins.

Jay County High School girls basketball team’s strong start was enough to propel it to a win 40-24 victory over the visiting Bluffton Tigers despite its shooting struggles for most of the night.

“We got off to a good start,” said JCHS coach Kirk Comer, whose team had 27 turnovers in Tuesday’s two-point win over Concordia. “And that was our goal, to get off to a good start and force them to call a quick timeout, which we did. And the game plan kind of went away from there.

“I think mentally we relaxed. Once we were ahead 9-0, we just never got back focused.

“Offensively, we didn’t execute our offense at all tonight. No matter what we called, we didn’t execute.”

The result was a 34% shooting effort on an evening during which most of those shots came from inside the paint.

Fortunately for the Patriots (10-6, 4-1 Allen County Athletic Conference), who have won nine of their last 10 games, they got off to a smoking start. Izzy Rodgers buried a 3-pointer on the game’s first possession, and back-to-back put-back baskets from Madison Dirksen — she led JCHS with 14 rebounds, 10 of which came in the first half — put the home team up 7-0 before Bluffton really had a chance to blink.

A Renna Schwieterman hoop after a Tiger timeout pushed the lead to 9-0 before the visitors got their first point on an Emma Boots free throw at the 5:37 mark.

“I thought defensively we played with intensity,” said Comer of that early stretch. “A lot of times you see a team get a lead and then relax, and then they can’t get it back. … That’s what happened to us tonight.”

Jay County failed to score over the final five minutes of the first quarter as they went 5-of-18 from the field. The Patriots’ lead never disappeared as they were up comfortably 23-10 at halftime and 32-13 after three quarters, but they never looked sharp either.

Dirksen’s 14 points were the team high for JCHS, and Renna Schwieterman added 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Bluffton’s struggles on the offensive end were even more pronounced as it shot 8-of-41 (19 percent) and missed seven of its 11 free-throw attempts. The Tigers (4-12, 0-5 ACAC), who got a team-best six points from Olivia King, also committed 18 turnovers.

The Patriots will look to improve their offense in practice today and Monday, Comer said, before heading to Woodlan to open the Allen County Athletic Conference Tournament on Tuesday. Jay County lost the regular-season match-up between the squads by a 55-51 score Nov. 29.

“When we played them the first time, we didn’t have much experience,” said Comer, thinking back to the team’s fifth game of the season. “We had some nerves. Didn’t really know what to expect. …

“Now, we’ve won nine out of 10. We’re a different team now than went there the first time. … We need to play like a different team come Tuesday’s game.”



Junior varsity

Gabi Bilbrey was simply unstoppable.

The freshman racked up 28 points to lead Jay County to a 38-28 victory over the Tigers.

Bilbrey scored nine of the Patriots’ 11 points as they shut out Bluffton in the first quarter. She had nine more in the second quarter as the home team took a 22-2 lead.

The Tigers made a run when she stayed on the bench in the third and closed all the way to within three points in the final period. But Bilbrey added another 10 points in the fourth as she matched the entire Bluffton scoring output by herself.

Abbie Fields and Heaven Hambrock each added four points as JCHS improved to 10-5.

Monroe Heller’s 10 points were the team high for the Tigers. Hannah Leas and Madi Fenstermaker each had seven.