Jay slams Starfires (08/21/07)

BERNE - With seven matches in the first eight days of their season, the Patriots haven't exactly had much time to adjust things in practice. So Monday night, they decided to do it in a match.

The Jay County volleyball team improved to 4-2 with a 25-16, 27-25, 25-14 victory over the South Adams Starfires while working on some of the areas that had given them trouble in the early going this year.

"It gave us a chance to play around with some things and try some things that we haven't been clicking on a lot," said Jay County volleyball coach Fred Medler. "We wanted to run some middle stuff because our middle hasn't been clicking, but our passing hasn't been clicking to run middles. And sometimes we've had the middle option available and we've decided to set somewhere else."

While attack errors were an issue all along the net - Medler said he counted nine in the span in which South Adams took a 14-8 lead in the second game - the focus on the middle also resulted in a match-high nine kills for Patriot middle-hitter Sarah Westgerdes.

As Medler and his squad were working on specifics, the Starfires were happy to see some overall improvement.

"I thought that actually by far that's the best that they've played this season," said second-year SAHS coach Lindsay Rowe. "Their defense and their serve receive was definitely the best. I think that made the difference of us at least having a chance to comeback."

South Adams needed a comeback after the Patriots controlled the final two-thirds of the opening game.

With the opener tied at seven, Jay County took advantage of a couple of Starfire attack errors. Senior Sarah Mescher followed with a block, and her classmate Shelby Rines recorded back-to-back aces for a 12-7 lead.

SAHS stopped the bleeding with a time-out, but never got closer than four points the rest of the way. Mescher, Dirksen and Rines all added another ace apiece in the 25-16 victory.

The Starfires had their chance to come back as Jay County had difficulty keeping the ball on the court in game two. The result was a 9-2 South Adams run for a 14-8 lead, but the Patriots fought their way back.

"It was like, 'Guys, let's see if you can play through and play out of this,'" said Medler of digging out of the hole. "And they did."

Jay County chipped away at the Starfire lead and tied the match at 20 thanks to an attack error. The teams traded points to a tie at 22 before Kristi Morningstar ripped back-to-back aces to give the Patriots a game-point opportunity.

South Adams rallied back for a 25-24 lead and a game-point try of their own, but Westgerdes denied them. She found an open spot in the back left corner of the court for a kill to tie the game at 25, and smashed another off the arms of Jacie Yoder two points later to clinch the game.

"I think if that game was played later in the season perhaps we could have had enough mental toughness to stay ahead and win that," said Rowe. "But that was a positive game for us, even though it was a loss."

Game three belonged to the Patriots throughout. They took a 4-0 lead thanks to two kills from Westgerdes and two aces from Rines and never trailed.

Rines finished with team highs of 10 points and five aces. She was also second with eight kills and five digs.

Morningstar got her most extended playing to thus far this season and made the most of it with nine points, including four aces, and five digs.

"She stepped in. We're trying to build some more confidence in some of the players we haven't been using," said Medler. "She stepped back there and she had some really tough serves ... It just takes confidence and then a chance to do it."

Stephanie Wellman added a team-best six digs, Sharon Dirksen had 19 assists and Westgerdes and Mescher each notched two blocks.

For South Adams, Karen Bollenbacher matched Westgerdes with a match-high nine kills. Yoder totaled 14 assists and nine digs, and Lindsay Batt had 10 digs.[[In-content Ad]]