Battered Patriots struggle in loss

Playing without two starters, the Patriots had a hard-fought, four-point lead after 10 minutes.
The Bearcats’ Jayla Scaife made sure the Patriots wouldn’t lead again.
Scaife, who has committed to play for the University of Dayton, scored 19 of her game-high 23 points in the final three quarters Tuesday as Muncie Central beat Jay County, 48-31.
“I thought, to be honest, we played about half a game, somewhere in the neighborhood of about 16 minutes,” said JCHS girls basketball coach Kirk Comer, whose team was without senior Abby Wendel, the team’s leading scorer, and junior Taylor Homan because of leg injuries. “When we played pretty well we played with composure and toughness. But I thought there was 16 minutes where we were mentally weak and made a lot of mistakes.”
Jay County (8-2), which has now lost back-to-back games, jumped out to a 10-4 lead thanks to eight points from Shelby Caldwell.
The freshman finished with a team-high 11 points and eight rebounds.
Muncie Central (6-3), which is in the same sectional as Jay County, scored six points in the final minute of the quarter. Lyla Muhlenkamp notched two of her nine points nearly two minutes into the second for a 14-10 JC advantage.
Scaife then had a personal 6-0 run, including a baseline drive, a fast-break lay-up and a jumper from the top of the key, to give Muncie Central a 16-14 lead. Precious Peak followed it with a 3-pointer from the left wing to finish a Bearcat streak of nine points.
Scaife added five consecutive points midway through the third quarter that gave Muncie Central a 10-point advantage, 29-19.
“Jay County did a great job,” said MCHS coach Lisa Blalock. “Defensively they play with such great effort and intensity. They are a really smart team so we had to adjust a little bit to what they were doing.
“I thought our other girls stepped up as well and created some great opportunities.”
Meanwhile, Jay County’s offense wasn’t able to hit shots like it did in the first eight minutes. The Patriots were just 2-of-17 combined in the second and third quarters after a 5-for-11 to open the game, and they went more than eight minutes between field goals and scored four points in each of the middle periods.
“Wow. I didn’t realize that,” Blalock said. “That’s what we pride ourselves on is defense and having great effort and execution defensively.
“We really try to stay strong on that and let our defense create offense for us. I feel like once we zeroed in defensively that really helped us create offensive opportunities.”
It also helped that 17 of Muncie Central’s 28 rebounds were on the offensive side of the court to keep possessions alive. Scaife had a game-high 15 rebounds, seven of which were on offense.
“You can’t give up that many rebounds against a good team and expect to win,” Comer said. “Between having all those offensive rebounds and how many turnovers we had (16) that ends up in the result.”
Comer, whose team travels to Monroe on Friday to play Allen County Athletic Conference rival Adams Central, noted the experience the younger players got in the absence of Wendel and Homan.
“I think that in the long run we’re going to become a better team, a deeper team, because girls are asked to step up into different roles now,” he said. “Girls are asked to come in and get more minutes. They’re just going to gain experience and by gaining that experience it should help us down the road.”

Junior varsity
The Patriots’ defense allowed just two points in each of the second and third quarters in a 66-20 thumping of the Bearcats.
Jay County, which remained perfect at 10-0, also scored 26 points in the second quarter to pull away after leading 14-7 after the first seven minutes. It totaled 18 points in each of the final two frames to keep the contest out of reach.
Hanna Dillon and Audrey Shreve led the Patriots with 12 and 11 points respectively. Hemmelgarn added nine points, with Sam Twigg, Kendra Muhlenkamp, Kendal Garringer, Devin Foltz and Clair Dirksen scoring five points apiece.