Warriors top Jay

Mental miscues continue to hurt the Patriots.

Early Thursday the Jay County High School volleyball team stood toe-to-toe with Class A No. 4 Wes-Del. But mistakes ignited a run by the visiting Warriors and they handed the Patriots a 25-19, 25-10, 25-16 defeat.

"We played really well at times. ... We just are making the same mental breakdown mistakes," said JCHS coach Fred Medler, whose team dropped to 3-18. "It's been that way all year.

"Tonight it was obvious when we played well ... and then the mental breakdowns started and that's when we broke apart."

Jay County led 8-7 in the opening game. And even after the Warriors went a brief run to take the the lead, the Patriots pulled back to within 13-12.

But Wes-Del, which beat JCHS 25-21, 25-11 Sept. 12 at the Noblesville Invitational, answered by ripping off six straight points and never trailed again in the match.

Medler described several situations in which players were out of position during the Warriors run, noting that his team needs to improve at "thinking the game".

"Fred's girls are always competitive and you know they're going to come out and work hard," said Wes-Del coach Biff Wilson of the early part of the match. "When played them in the tournament at Noblesville it was the same thing ...

"I think that the experience of my group sometimes will allow us to stretch it out a little bit ..."

The Warriors used a 10-run with two aces from Sarah Vance to take control in game two, and jumped to an 8-3 lead in game three and gradually extended it. They used a balanced offense with Taylor Sutton, Alexa Antrim and Vance each recording seven kills to support Sacha Gill's 13.

"We run a type of offense which is going to get a lot of girls a lot of swings from a lot of places," said Wilson. "We're not big by any stretch of the imagination. ... We've got to work a little more laterally than we do vertically."

Antrim also had 16 digs and three aces, and Logan Millspaugh put up 32 assists.

Medler tinkered with his lineup, using sophomore Danielle Wellman at the libero spot in the first and third games. He said its an effort to keep his best serve receivers - junior Laura Castillo (10 digs), freshman Hannah Ainsworth and Wellman (11 digs) - on the court for all six rotations.

"If you get a decent pass off a serve, you've got a shot," said Medler. "If you don't get that pass off a serve then the other team just runs a bunch of stuff.

"We know we're really close to finding the one we're going to probably end the year with. There's still some tweaking that we have to figure out."

Maria Murphy had four blocks and three kills for the Patriots, and Ashley Langenkamp and Ainsworth each scored five points.

Junior varsity

The Patriots rallied to take down Wes-Del 24-25, 25-15, 15-10.

Jay County dropped the first game after leading most of the way, but bounced back in the second. It took a 5-0 lead in the third game and never trailed.

Whitni Somers racked up team highs of 14 digs and five kills to lead the Patriots. Megan May had 13 digs and eight points, Tanner Martin totaled 15 points and eight assists and Ashley Franklin had five kills.[[In-content Ad]]