Jay 1-2 as hosts (08/25/2008)

Jay County High School's volleyball team dropped its first three matches, losing all seven games, to open the regular season. But the Patriots came through in their final effort Saturday.

JCHS defeated the Norwell Knights 25-21, 25-13 in the last match of the Jay County Invitational to finish third in the four-team event. Marion went undefeated to take the championship, and Northeastern was second.

Kelsey Wood, a junior, led the Patriots (1-3) to their first victory of the season with team highs of six kills and six digs. She was first in kills (16) and digs (13) for Jay County on the day and also added 10 points.

Kelci Reed had six digs and seven points against Norwell and finished the invitational with 12 digs and a team-high 13-points. Liz Walker totaled eight assists.

Lindsey Current followed Wood with 14 kills in the three matches, and Amy Alig and Sarah Westgerdes each had nine.

Westgerdes and Current each had four blocks.

Chelsea Grady came up with 12 digs, and Walker had 11 points. Kristi Morningstar put up 20 assists, and Walker added 17.

Junior varsity

Kassi Hemmelgarn led the Patriots in points and assists as they finished 2-1, defeating Northeastern and Marion and losing to Norwell.

Hemmelgarn racked up 11 points in the 14-25, 25-24, 15-8 win over Marion en route to 27 in the three matches. She also had 18 assists against the Giants.

Nine of Maria Murphy's 16 kills came in the 25-22, 22-25, 15-14 loss to Norwell, and she also had 12 points on the day. Becky Muhlenkamp had 11 of her team-high 19 digs against Marion.

Taylor Burress followed Murphy with 11 kills, Jen Dirksen totaled 12 points and Randa Gillespie had nine digs.

Hemmelgarn had 10 assists in Thursday's 25-17, 20-25, 15-10 loss to Delta. Laura Castillo had eight kills, Muhlenkamp finished with six digs and Whitni Somers had five points.[[In-content Ad]]