July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Patriots rally past LC (09/06/06)
JCHS volleyball
Patriots rally past LC (09/06/06)
By By RAY COONEY-
Trailing 9-2 in the final game and with no timeouts left, the six Patriots on the floor were on their own.
Senior Erica Clark turned in some solid serving.
Sarah Westgerdes and Shelby Rines came up big at the net.
And in general Jay County just kept the ball off the floor, rallying to tie the fifth game at nine on the way to a thrilling 25-16, 23-25, 25-23, 23-25, 17-15 victory over the visiting Lions of Liberty Christian (Anderson).
"That was awesome," said Rines, who had four of her 12 kills in the closing moments of the fifth game. "The energy was amazing."
"We were really pumped up," added Sarah Mescher.
The match seemed to be slipping away from the Patriots as they trailed by seven, but Erica Clark served them back into it. With the help of a couple of Westgerdes kills, Clark got the score back to a tie at nine.
Liberty Christian (6-5) pushed ahead again at 12-10, but back-to-back Rines kills evened the game at 12. Rines found the left sideline for another kill to give the Patriots a 14-13 advantage and a chance at victory.
Jay County missed a serve on its first match-point try, but Rines got the lead back again with yet another kill. The Lions survived one more match-point, only to have Westgerdes notch a kill to put the home team ahead once more.
Liberty Christian looked as if they might survive a third time, but Betsy Guion's attack was called just wide of the left sideline to give the Patriots the victory.
"That was a great turn-around," said JCHS coach Fred Medler. "Clark kept her serves in play, which we didn't do in game four when we needed to.
"That's one of the steps this team needs to take - just win those kind of matches. If you win the five-game matches it's going to bode well for you."
While Rines was the hero of the final game, Mescher powered the Patriots in the third. And Westgerdes was there throughout as she burst onto the scene as a potent attacker.
Mescher had five of her nine kills in the second half of game three, repeatedly getting the ball back for her team. Her final kill of that game evened the score at 22, Rines served the next two points and Westgerdes finished it when she whacked a kill off the block attempt by the Lions' Karon Earley.
Westgerdes, a sophomore, showed how much progress she has made, smacking three kills in the opening five points of the match. She had five in the first game and seven in the second on the way to shattering her career high with 22.
She said she's becoming more comfortable at the net, and handed a lot of the credit to her teammates.
"They just help me get through it," said Westgerdes, who also finished with three blocks. "It's mainly just the other players."
Six Jay County players had double-digit digs, led by Stephanie Wellman with 18. Rines and Theresa Reinhart each had 16, Clark and Ashley Horn came up with 14 apiece and Jessica Muhlenkamp had 11.
Horn had 14 points with three aces, and Muhlenkamp scored 12 points with four aces. Rines also had 12 points, and Clark scored 10 points to go along with 49 assists.
The victory pushed Jay County to 5-7 on the season. The team won just six matches in all of 2005, but is targeting a goal of 18 this year.
"I think it's going pretty well," said Mescher. "I feel like we can just keep doing well and keep getting better and better."
The Patriots took control in the opening game thanks in part to five Liberty Christian service errors, including a run of four errors in five attempts. They went up two games to one and had a 18-12 lead in game four, but then gave up an 11-2 run.
A Guion kill capped the game-four comeback for the Lions before Jay County returned the favor with their game-five rally.
"A couple of times when we got ourselves into trouble it was our serve reception, but we bailed ourselves out ... a couple of times it was our serve," said Medler. "But when you can win a five-game match and still give away a game that maybe you shouldn't have, I'm happy. I'm pleased with our progress ..."
Guion paced Liberty Christian with 14 kills, and also added 24 digs. Heather Petty had 33 digs and three aces, Kate Driskell notched 11 kills and three aces and Earley had 13 assists.
"We came back hard," said LCHS coach Jet Zeigler. "We have a big match on Thursday and we came back wanting to win this to get us going for Thursday. ... It was a great match. It was fought hard on both sides."
Junior varsity
Jay County dropped to 2-7 with a 25-18, 25-14 loss to the Lions.
Chelsea Grady paced the Patriots with 12 digs and three kills. Liz Walker had eight assists, five points and three aces.
Julie Alig added five points and four aces, and Amy Powell notched six digs. Lindsey Current finished with two kills.[[In-content Ad]]
Senior Erica Clark turned in some solid serving.
Sarah Westgerdes and Shelby Rines came up big at the net.
And in general Jay County just kept the ball off the floor, rallying to tie the fifth game at nine on the way to a thrilling 25-16, 23-25, 25-23, 23-25, 17-15 victory over the visiting Lions of Liberty Christian (Anderson).
"That was awesome," said Rines, who had four of her 12 kills in the closing moments of the fifth game. "The energy was amazing."
"We were really pumped up," added Sarah Mescher.
The match seemed to be slipping away from the Patriots as they trailed by seven, but Erica Clark served them back into it. With the help of a couple of Westgerdes kills, Clark got the score back to a tie at nine.
Liberty Christian (6-5) pushed ahead again at 12-10, but back-to-back Rines kills evened the game at 12. Rines found the left sideline for another kill to give the Patriots a 14-13 advantage and a chance at victory.
Jay County missed a serve on its first match-point try, but Rines got the lead back again with yet another kill. The Lions survived one more match-point, only to have Westgerdes notch a kill to put the home team ahead once more.
Liberty Christian looked as if they might survive a third time, but Betsy Guion's attack was called just wide of the left sideline to give the Patriots the victory.
"That was a great turn-around," said JCHS coach Fred Medler. "Clark kept her serves in play, which we didn't do in game four when we needed to.
"That's one of the steps this team needs to take - just win those kind of matches. If you win the five-game matches it's going to bode well for you."
While Rines was the hero of the final game, Mescher powered the Patriots in the third. And Westgerdes was there throughout as she burst onto the scene as a potent attacker.
Mescher had five of her nine kills in the second half of game three, repeatedly getting the ball back for her team. Her final kill of that game evened the score at 22, Rines served the next two points and Westgerdes finished it when she whacked a kill off the block attempt by the Lions' Karon Earley.
Westgerdes, a sophomore, showed how much progress she has made, smacking three kills in the opening five points of the match. She had five in the first game and seven in the second on the way to shattering her career high with 22.
She said she's becoming more comfortable at the net, and handed a lot of the credit to her teammates.
"They just help me get through it," said Westgerdes, who also finished with three blocks. "It's mainly just the other players."
Six Jay County players had double-digit digs, led by Stephanie Wellman with 18. Rines and Theresa Reinhart each had 16, Clark and Ashley Horn came up with 14 apiece and Jessica Muhlenkamp had 11.
Horn had 14 points with three aces, and Muhlenkamp scored 12 points with four aces. Rines also had 12 points, and Clark scored 10 points to go along with 49 assists.
The victory pushed Jay County to 5-7 on the season. The team won just six matches in all of 2005, but is targeting a goal of 18 this year.
"I think it's going pretty well," said Mescher. "I feel like we can just keep doing well and keep getting better and better."
The Patriots took control in the opening game thanks in part to five Liberty Christian service errors, including a run of four errors in five attempts. They went up two games to one and had a 18-12 lead in game four, but then gave up an 11-2 run.
A Guion kill capped the game-four comeback for the Lions before Jay County returned the favor with their game-five rally.
"A couple of times when we got ourselves into trouble it was our serve reception, but we bailed ourselves out ... a couple of times it was our serve," said Medler. "But when you can win a five-game match and still give away a game that maybe you shouldn't have, I'm happy. I'm pleased with our progress ..."
Guion paced Liberty Christian with 14 kills, and also added 24 digs. Heather Petty had 33 digs and three aces, Kate Driskell notched 11 kills and three aces and Earley had 13 assists.
"We came back hard," said LCHS coach Jet Zeigler. "We have a big match on Thursday and we came back wanting to win this to get us going for Thursday. ... It was a great match. It was fought hard on both sides."
Junior varsity
Jay County dropped to 2-7 with a 25-18, 25-14 loss to the Lions.
Chelsea Grady paced the Patriots with 12 digs and three kills. Liz Walker had eight assists, five points and three aces.
Julie Alig added five points and four aces, and Amy Powell notched six digs. Lindsey Current finished with two kills.[[In-content Ad]]
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