Freshmen lead Patriots in season opener

WARSAW — The Patriots had a lot of questions coming into the season with a freshman-heavy roster.

Some of those questions have now been answered.

The Jay County High School cross country teams competed at the 2024 Tigers XC Invite on Saturday morning to open the season with a third-place finish for the girls and a seventh-place finish for the boys.

Columbia City dominated both races as a 38 in the girls claimed the top spot and a 44 in the boys earned the win. The Patriot girls notched 138 points, while the boys had 263.

Four freshmen scored for Jay County, including Jessie Homan, whose time of 22 minutes, 18 seconds, earned her 18th place. Behind her in 20th, Brooklynn Byrum scored a time of 22:23.79.

Junior Alexis Sibray (23:16.3) had the third-best Patriot finish, claiming the 30th spot.

Rounding out Jay County’s score were freshman Abby Fifer (23:39.63) in 33rd place and Ava May (23:59.88) in 37th.

Caleb Garringer paced the boys with a 17:58.47 for sixth place.

Freshman Dash Thacker came out strong with a 23rd-place finish in 19:08.55. Two more freshmen, Dougie Cox (20:02.58) and Alex Rivers (22:12.69), added scores as well by finishing 50th and 83rd.

Lukes Powers provided the final score for the Patriots, finishing in 101st after 23:09.36.

Tribe opens with win

RUSSIA, Ohio — Fort Recovery’s volleyball team opened the season with a 25-19, 25-18, 21-25, 25-23 victory over the Russia Raiders on Saturday.

Karlie Niekamp led the attack with 11 kills, finding success on half of her attempts and  45.5% hitting. Behind her, sisters Kennedy and Cameron Muhlenkamp had nine and eight kills, respectively.

Kayla Heitkamp accounted for 36 of the 42 Fort Recovery assists to support the hitters.

The Indians (1-0) ended with 14 aces and 16 service errors in the game. The Muhlenkamps had the most success from the service line. Kennedy Muhlenkamp finished with four aces and one error on 24 attempts, while Cameron Muhlenkamp put up similar numbers on 20 attempts.

Fort Recovery’s defense made up for the hitting and service errors, as it tallied 72 digs and no digging errors. Cameron Muhlenkamp had the most digs with 21, while sophomore Kenna Dues followed with 18.

Pats swept

NEW CASTLE – The Jay County boys tennis team got swept by Connersville and New Castle in the Trojan Kickoff Duals on Saturday.

Eli Dirksen, Gabe Pinkerton and Kayden Carpenter all only won one game against Connersville in the No. 1, 2 and 3 singles positions. Dirksen and Carpenter both lost 6-0, 6-1, while Pinkerton fell 6-1, 6-0.

No. 1 doubles teammates Blake Kahlig and Carter Wellman got swept 6-0, 6-0. Carson Westgerdes and Kason Sims suffered a similar fate in the No. 2 doubles match.

Things picked up a little in the second match, but the result stayed the same for Jay County (0-2).

Dirksen fell 6-0, 7-5 to Leo Underhill in the No. 1 singles match.

Pinkerton dropped the No. 2 singles match 6-0, 6-4 to Matt Hastings.

Cameron Hastings picked off Carpenter in the No. 3 singles match 6-0, 6-1.

Kahlig and Carter Wellman won one game against Vincent Farris and Austin Nunez for a 6-1, 6-0 loss.

Westgerdes and Clark Wellman got swept by Dylan Blackford and Trenton Boughton.