JCHS defeats Falcons (09/14/06)

When victories have been available for the Patriots, they've taken them.

Jay County's volleyball team put together another solid win Wednesday, defeating the visiting Winchester Golden Falcons 25-20, 25-23, 25-23. Of the team's six wins away from invitational action this year, five have come in three games.

"The team on the other side of the net never quit and hustled and played hard," said JCHS coach Fred Medler. "Winchester is pretty good. They'll bother a lot of people, and they bothered us a lot of the time. We just kept picking away and picking away ... we scored enough points to get to 25 before they did."

All three games were close, and big service runs by Erica Clark keyed the Patriot victories in each of the first two.

Jay County trailed 7-3 in the opening game when Clark stepped back and served eight straight points, including a couple of aces, for a 9-0 run. The home team never trailed again in the game, finishing it on a kill from Shelby Rines.

The Patriots (8-10) were behind again early in the second game by a 5-3 score, but Clark put together another good stretch of serving. The senior setter led a 6-0 run to give her team the advantage. Winchester managed to pull back ahead at 23-21, but Jay County scored the final four points in a row with kills from Sarah Mescher and Theresa Reinhart as well as a couple of Golden Falcon errors.

"It's mistakes are just a lack of experience," said Winchester coach Lace Hummel, whose team dropped to 5-14. "We've got a bunch of girls who haven't played together, or haven't even played last year. Experience is the one thing we're really missing out on."

"We're just not consistent. The pass will be there, but the set will be off, or the pass will be missed or the kill is not there. It's just a matter of putting it all in order."

Clark finished with team highs of 19 points and three aces. She also had 18 assists, four digs and one kill.

"The first two games Erica Clark went back there and served ... and got us several points that brought us back into games," said Medler. "A couple times during the night we let them string some points together and get a lead again on us. But we just kept battling. We would have given those games away earlier in the year."

But not Wednesday.

The Patriots again found themselves trailing by as many as four points midway through the third game, but went on an 10-2 run led by two kills apiece from Westgerdes and Reinhart to pull ahead for good again. Winchester got within a point at 24-23, but dropped the match when Mallory McCormick's attack went just long.

Westgerdes led Jay County with seven kills and three blocks, and Reinhart had 12 digs and five blocks. Jessica Muhlenkamp finished with 10 points and six digs, and Rines also had six digs.

Reinhart had the Golden Falcon defense off-balance all night, scoring for the Patriots with tips on five different occasions.

"(We've been working on) basically just changing your offense," said Medler. "You can't always go up and hit the same shot, the same shot, the same shot. ... So we've been working on a little bit of tipping in practice, a little bit of off-speed shots ... we've been telling them the zone that's open and they've been pretty effective at hitting it. (Reinhart) and Shelby (Rines) both have come a long way in the last two weeks as hitters."

Pelser totaled eight kills to lead Winchester, followed by seven from McCormick and eight by Sarah Hamm. McCormick also had six digs.

Micah Anderson finished with 11 digs, and Sarah Stevick added eight.

"We're just not consistent," said Hummel. "The pass will be there, but the set will be off, or the pass will be missed or the kill is not there. It's just a matter of putting it all in order."

Junior varsity

Jay County rallied to top the Falcons 19-25, 25-14, 15-5.

Amy Powell and Kristi Morningstar shared the team high of nine points, finishing with four and three aces respectively. Morningstar also led the Patriots with five digs.

Chelsea Grady had eight points and two digs, and Kelsey Wood finished with two digs and two kills. Ashley Langenkamp notched four assists, and Lindsey Current had four kills.[[In-content Ad]]