Patriots win third straight

At times during the season, Jay County High School’s softball team struggled to make adjustments throughout the course of a game.
Tuesday against Daleville, it took the Patriots one inning to figure out Broncos’ pitcher Katilyn Ewing.
Jay County scored two or more runs in four of the final five innings Tuesday, defeating the Broncos 10-0 in six innings on a gusty, overcast evening.
It was the third straight victory for Jay County (7-5) and the sixth in the last seven games after it started the season 1-4.
“I talk to them all the time about making (adjustments) pitch-by-pitch or inning-by-inning,” said JCHS coach Doug Arbuckle, whose team has won three straight games for the second time this season. “The first inning we were hitting everything off the end of the bat and we finally settled down to hit the ball on the nose.
“Continuously if we hit the ball hard it’s going to find a hole.”
Jay County loaded the bases in the bottom of the second inning when Gabby Hart reached on an error and Kady Finnerty walked. Kaili Baughman tried to sacrifice herself, laying down a bunt that stopped 3 feet in front of home plate, but the Bronco infield was unable to get the out. Randi Auker followed with a sacrifice fly to center to drive in Hart, and Finnerty scored on a groundout by Catera Gierhart.
The Patriots scored three more in the third on an RBI single by Hart and Baughman’s RBI double. Baughman finished with two hits, and Hart led all players with three hits to go with her two RBIs and four runs.
“Her bat speed is a big thing that she didn’t get going last year until late,” Arbuckle said. Hart is second on the team in batting average (.353), and now leads the team in RBIs with 11. She also has three of the Patriots’ five home runs. “It looks like she’s got it tuned up pretty good right now.”
Catherine Dunn and Hart hit back-to-back singles to start the fifth inning, and Dunn came around to score on Finnerty’s rocket up the middle. Hart, who had advanced to third on the play, later scored on a double steal for a 7-0 Patriot lead.
In the sixth, Courtney Finnerty and Chloe Trissel hit consecutive singles, and after Finnerty was cut down at third on a fielder’s choice, Trissel scored on Hart’s second RBI single of the game. Dunn scored on a wild pitch, and three batters later McKaya Norris drove in Hart with a single up the middle to complete the run-rule victory.
All nine spots of Jay County’s order reached base at least once — totaling 13 hits in all — and it’s production that Arbuckle said has helped the Patriots turn the page from a slow start to the season.
“We need better production all the way through the lineup to be that team we want to be,” Arbuckle said. Jay County had its entire roster tally hits Saturday in a 5-4, nine-inning victory against Centerville in the championship game of the Richmond Invitational. “That’s what you’ve got to do, you’ve got to put the bat on the ball, make the defense work and put pressure on them.”
Jay County senior Larissa Boles won her sixth game of the season, scattering three hits while walking one and striking out 10 in just four innings. Arbuckle said it was his plan to have the Huntington University commit pitch four innings to get her some work in preparation for Thursday’s Allen County Athletic Conference opener on the road at Woodlan.
Boles sat down two batters on strikes in each of the first two innings, and struck out the side in the third and fourth. She gave way to classmate Catherine Dunn, who tallied a pair of Ks on her own without allowing a hit in two innings of relief.