Jay County advances

The Patriots got the rematch they wanted.
Two weeks after losing to the Winchester Golden Falcons 3-2, the Jay County High School boys tennis team will get a shot at redemption tonight.
This time, it will be for a sectional championship. And this time, the Patriots will have their No. 1 singles player.
Jay County took care of the Randolph Southern Rebels 4-1 on Wednesday to set up a rematch with the Golden Falcons, who beat the Union City Indians 4-1 to reach the sectional final.
The finals will begin at 5 p.m. tonight at JCHS, and this will be the third consecutive year the Patriots and Falcons have played for the title.
“The nerves have subsided,” first-year JCHS coach Scott Miller said, alluding to his anxious feeling before the match started. “I’ve been telling the boys all this week and before the match started, I don’t care who we play, we have to go out there with the right mindset.
“We have to play our tennis.”
It didn’t take long for the Patriots to get going, at least in four of the five matches.
The Patriots’ No. 2 doubles team of Sok Vormhor, a junior, and freshman Garrett Rodgers picked up the first win of the night for Jay County. The two got ahead 3-0 in the opening set against Tyler Pegg and Jordan McReynolds, until the Rebel duo took one of the final four games in the set.
But it was all Rodgers and Vormohr in the second as they capitalized on Randolph Southern’s unforced errors, including a double-fault to drop the match.
Soon after, Jay County’s No. 1 doubles squad of Jay Houck and Adam Jutte knocked off Nick Dunham and Aaron Pearson 6-3, 6-1. Houck and Jutte had a narrow lead in the opening set, 3-2, before pulling away.
“They were struggling through the earlier part of that set (with) close games and bad shots, and (they) were letting Randolph Southern dictate how that was going to go,” Miller said. “Finally they figured things out and changed their strategy a bit.”
Zach Pryor, a JCHS senior and No. 1 singles player who missed the match against Winchester Sept. 18 with a back injury, cruised to a 6-0 win in the first set against Jake Wolfal.
Pryor spent the majority of the second set working on some of his shots, allowing Walfal to keep it close until he trailed 4-3. But Pryor returned to his strong forehand to put the match away and lock up the Patriots’ spot in the sectional championship.

“He was stretching himself out, he was hitting his second serve a little bit harder than he normally hits it just to see what he could do,” Miller said of Pryor. “Once the match got a little bit closer than he would have liked, he went back to just making sure he was going to win the match.”
At No. 3 singles, RSHS’s Kory Slick nabbed the first set from Alex Krieg 6-3, but the Patriot senior recovered to take the second 6-4. Krieg then dropped the opening game of the decisive third set before winning six straight to put away Slick.
The slow start by Krieg was exactly what Miller had feared would happen to his entire team.
“When this match started … I thought we were going to let (Randolph Southern) determine how the match was going to go,” Miller said. “I felt like (Krieg) started really tentatively and wasn’t quite sure what to do. Once he got relaxed a little bit and got his feet underneath him he played well.”
Jay County’s only loss of the match came at No. 3 singles when Alex Clark was forced to retire.
Clark, a junior, had been battling a knee injury and he hoped to play through it. After taking the opening set against David Fisher 6-2, the two battled for 10 games with Fisher coming out on top in the second.
Since the outcome of the team match had already been decided, Clark opted to concede the match to Fisher instead of playing a third set so he could rest up for the impending sectional title match.
“I think that if this was the finals, he’s going to fight through it until the score says he’s out,” Miller said. “Tonight it got to the point where he was hurting enough and he knows he has to play (Thursday) night.”