Jay girls hold off Blackford

HARTFORD CITY — The Patriots had an eight-point lead heading into the locker room at halftime on Tuesday.
They overcame a second-half surge by the Bruins to hang on for the victory.
Jay County High School’s girls basketball team picked up its eighth win of the season in a 40-35 defeat of Blackford.
Blackford’s Lauren Godfrey scored 13 of her 15 points, including three 3-pointers, in the second half as the Bruins outscored the Patriots 22-19 in the final 16 minutes.
Catherine Dunn had a game-high 16 points to pace the Patriots (8-1). Ava Kunkler and Hanna Ault both scored five points, and Taylor Homan and Bre McIntire chipped in with four points apiece.
Abby Wendel and Lyla Muhlenkamp each had three points.
Maggie Weeks-Foy and Faith Morris followed Godfrey with seven points each for Blackford (8-3).
The Patriots’ junior varsity team also beat the Bruins, 29-18, moving to 8-1 on the season. Birthday girl Britlyn Dues had a team-high nine points. Betsy Muhlenkamp tallied seven points, and Emily Muhlenkamp added four points.

Stars fall to Rebels
BERNE — South Adams High School senior Cindy In’t Groen had already scored 27 points.
Her attempt at pushing that total to 30 rimmed out as the clock expired Monday night in the Starfire girls basketball team’s 59-56 loss to the visiting Randolph Southern Rebels.
South Adams (5-4) got out to a slow start and fell behind 13-11 after the first eight minutes. It went nearly point-for-point with the visiting Rebels in the second quarter, but saw its deficit increase to three at halftime, 28-25.
Randolph Southern (8-3) had its lead shrink to 42-41 heading into the final frame, but free throws down the stretch gave the Rebels the three-point victory.
SAHS junior Sydney Willis scored 17 points. Lexi Dellinger added six points, and Sharon Balsiger tallied four.
Logan Saylor led the Rebels with 17 points and Morgan Acton followed with 14. Alyssa Saylor totaled 11 points as three Rebels reached double figures.

Chiefs rally
HARTFORD CITY — East Jay Middle School’s eighth grade boys basketball team erased a nine-point halftime deficit Monday to beat the Blackford Bruins, 32-30.
The EJMS seventh graders lost, 43-30.
East Jay’s eighth graders held Blackford to just seven points in the second half to rally past the Bruins.
Michael Schlecthy led the Chiefs with 13 points, and his twin brother Ryan added seven. Parker Grimes chipped in with four points, and Matthew Franks contributed three points.
Noah Arbuckle scored 14 points to pace the seventh grade Chiefs. Gabe Link totaled 13 points, and Brayden Sprunger had three points.
The EJMS eighth graders moved to 6-2 on the season, while the seventh graders fell to 3-5.