No. 3 Eagles top JCHS in championship (10/23/06)

MUNCIE - Jay County's volleyball team made it to Saturday's sectional final. And for five of the six teams in the Class 3A Delta grouping, that was as good as it was going to get.

The host Eagles, ranked third in the state, were heavily favored in the tournament and proved themselves to be the class of the group as they rolled over the Patriots 25-10, 25-14, 25-14 in the sectional championship match.

Delta used outstanding serving to beat both Jay County, and the Tipton Blue Devils (25-15, 15-16, 25-16) in the semifinal round earlier in the day. It had 14 aces in the championship victory.

"It was a quite a bit like what happened to Tipton, and maybe even a bit worse in the serve reception," said JCHS coach Fred Medler. "We knew that they were going to have six positions that could serve and send different serves at us and if we hesitated at all it was going to look ugly, and that's pretty much what happened.

"No matter where you go in sectional you're going to run into a team with a lot of experience in volleyball. If you're not going to match that, sometimes the result turns out the way it did. It's not a shame to go out against a team (like that), you just want to compete a little better."

The Eagles (27-8) were in control throughout, leading 13-5 in the opening game, 16-5 in game two and 12-3 in the third. Their victory sets up a showdown between two of the top three teams in Class 3A as they will meet top-ranked Bellmont in Saturday's regional semifinal round at Wawasee.

"I think the girls did a nice job of sticking to the game plans we had for both matches," said Delta coach Biff Wilson. "We work a lot on serving. It's almost like tennis or pitching, you try to control the match from 30 feet back. We try to control their offense with our serving. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

"We have service errors, but since we serve aggressively we're willing to give up some of that."

Jay County's only lead in any of the three games came early in the second as it scored four of the first five points behind kills from seniors Theresa Reinhart (seven digs, three points, two kills) and Erica Clark (eight assists). But the Eagles responded with one of their many big runs during the match, getting back-to-back aces from Kylie Dorton to tie the game at four. Her third serve went into the net to push the Patriots back ahead 5-4, but Delta scored the next 12 points in a row capped by a Emily Marsh ace.

The Eagles also had an 18-5 run to finish the opening game after a back-and-fourth start, and ran out to the big lead to open the third game. Megan Foster finished off their championship victory, hitting over a double block from Jay County and dropping a kill in the middle of the remaining four Patriots.

Sophomore Darcy Dorton and senior Kristen Brobst shared the team high of eight kills for the Eagles.

"We've got a group of young guns that really do a lot," said Wilson. "We work at running a faster offense and trying to get everyone involved that way."

Libero Brittney Danaher finished with seven digs, and Kylie Dorton had four aces. Darcy Dorton and Marsh each recorded two blocks.

It was a struggle offensively for Jay County, which scored consecutive service points just once in the entire match. That short run came in the second game with senior Ashley Horn (three points) behind the line, where she picked up points on a Sarah Westgerdes kill and an attack error by the Eagles to complete the Patriots longest run - three points.

Shelby Rines led Jay County with team highs of nine digs, four points and two kills. Sarah Mescher and Sarah Westgerdes also had two kills apiece.

The Patriots finished their season with a 14-21 record.

"The teams that were in the win column for us were teams that should have been in the win column for us," said Medler. "And teams that were evenly matched with us or competitive against us, we had a hard time getting those wins. I'm not disappointed with the season, but as we look at 14 matches we lost, we need to split those 14. ...

Medler said he felt his team's preseason goal of 18 wins was within reach after Jay County had won just six matches a year earlier.

"I think the kids know that," he added. "... We looked at 14 matches that really and honestly could have gone either way ... Had we split those 14 and got seven of them, we're at 21 wins."

Semifinals

The Patriots advanced to the championship match with a 25-19, 19-25, 25-22, 25-12 victory over the Mississinewa Indians (7-18) in the semifinal round Saturday.

Rines led four Jay County players in double digits with 12 points. She was also second on the team with 20 digs and 11 kills.

Clark had 27 assists, 10 points and five blocks. Theresa Reinhart totaled 22 digs and 10 points, Jessica Muhlenkamp had 11 points and five assists and Sarah Westgerdes racked up 12 kills.

"I think we came in understanding we wanted to get to tonight," said Medler. "We came out with some emotion, and then it was kind of like the emotion left us and we went flat for a while. It was hard to get it back.

"But we responded ... and we were able to get through."[[In-content Ad]]