Jay Co. sweeps opener

The Patriots won their conference opener for the second time in as many seasons.
Despite the victory, Jay County High School volleyball coach Fred Medler still left the gym Tuesday slightly disappointed.
“It wasn’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination,” said Medler, whose team defeated the Bluffton Tigers 25-20, 25-13, 25-20. “We didn’t play super, super well. Bluffton did some things that were causing us problems.”
One of those things, Medler noted, was hitting around Jay County’s block, getting the defense out of position and finding space down the sidelines.
“That let them be a little more successful than maybe what they could have or should have been,” said Medler, whose team is now 9-1 (1-0 Allen County Athletic Conference) and has won seven straight matches since it was swept Aug. 20 by then-Class 3A No. 4 Delta.
Much of the offense for Bluffton (2-8, 0-1 ACAC) came from its tallest player, 5-foot, 10-inch Emma Clines. She had three kills alone in the opening set, helping the Tigers keep the score close early on.
To complement Clines, however, senior Sara Baumgartner and junior Emily Miller were swinging alongside, providing kills despite their short stature. Baumgartner is 5 feet, 5 inches, tall, and Miller is an inch shorter.
“They play with their heart, that’s for sure,” Bluffton coach Gretchen Grau said. “They are little but they play hard.”
Bluffton had an early lead in the opening set until Jay County took a 5-3 advantage thanks to kills from Abby Barcus and Kylie Osborne.
Barcus had three kills, and Osborne finished with seven.
Jay County led for the remainder of the set, pushing its advantage to as many as five points, 15-10. But a string of Patriot service errors, Tiger blocks or attack errors by Jay County kept the score close.
The Patriots found their groove in the second set even though they gave up five consecutive points as their 10-4 lead shrunk to just one point.
But a kill by Britlyn Dues ended the streak, and the junior stepped back and served up the first of her two aces to start a 10-1 run by the Patriots.
“I thought Dues … she came back in and got some swings on the left side that were really positive for us,” Medler said of the junior, who had six kills and a pair of digs as well.
Bluffton got a few points late on a couple of Jay County errors, but the Patriots had a 15-4 run to win 25-13.
“We let them come back,” Medler said. “That was not what we should do at all. There were some errors in there on our part that made them make some good runs.”
The Patriots led 5-4 before going on a five-point run. Then the Tigers answered with their streak of five consecutive points before Jay County rattled off three straight. A service error gave a point to Bluffton, but the home team scored the next seven points to put it out of reach.
“We were able to right the ship, come back and played pretty well,” Medler said.
After recording just three kills in the first set and none in the second, Abby Wendel notched six in the final set to finish with a team-high nine. She also had two aces and five digs.
Lizzy Schoenlein had six kills, and the junior setter assisted on 23 of the Patriots’ 31 other kills. She shared the team high with three aces and also had four digs. Ava Kunkler (three), Emilie Walter (two) and Kaelyn Weaver (one) also had kills. Sophomore libero Chloe Trissel led the squad with nine digs.

Junior varsity
The Patriots won the first set against the Tigers easily by a score of 25-14. Jay County battled but lost the second 25-23.
The Patriots returned to form from the opening set, cruising to a 15-5 win to take the match in three sets.
Hanna Ault had 10 kills to lead the Patriots (7-3, 0-1 ACAC). She also had two aces, a block and an assist.
Olivia Kunkler was second on the team with six kills, and Hannah Dillon added four to go with her two aces.
Kaylee Denney and Kendal Garringer each had two kills, and Denney tallied 15 assists.
Garringer was also 14-of-16 from the service line.