Boys hold of Starfire surge in second half

The Patriots were on their way to a shutout victory against conference foe South Adams.
The Starfires had another idea.
South Adams scored two goals in the final 30 minutes Saturday and had a chance to net the equalizer but time expired as the Jay County High School boys soccer team held off a late surge to hang on for a 3-2 victory against the Starfires.
“It’s hard … to get the kids to think defensively in the second half,” said JCHS coach Adam Daniels, whose team went ahead 3-0 on a goal by Jason Schlosser almost four minutes into the second half. “It is something we talked about at halftime.
“I (didn’t) want to switch anything up formation-wise. We were playing well in the first half. We didn’t give up a goal in the first half and that’s the way we needed to keep playing.”
Although the Stars were in such a big hole, South Adams coach Luke McClung — a JCHS graduate — was pleased with the way his team responded to the deficit.
“We played a new lineup that seemed to work really well for us,” said McClung, whose team is 0-3-1 after starting the season 4-0. “We came out more fired up than we did in the first half which has been a problem for us all year.”
South Adams (4-3-1, 0-1 Allen County Athletic Conference) broke the shutout in the 51st minute on a goal by Brian O’Donnell. Jay County (5-3, 2-1 ACAC) turned the ball over in its defensive third, and O’Donnell dribbled to the middle of the 18-yard box and buried a shot into the right side of the net past Patriot goalkeeper Trevor Moeller.
Then with less than three minutes remaining, O’Donnell sent a cross pass into the box that Cole Myers headed toward the net. Moeller leaped to tip the ball over the crossbar, giving South Adams a corner kick.
O’Donnell placed the ball at the corner, fired a shot toward the net that Justin Nussbaum headed to the near post past Moeller for the Starfires’ second goal with 2:14 to play.
Moeller had four saves on the day.
With time running out, South Adams had another shot to tie the game on another corner kick, but the Starfires were not able to get a clean shot at the net as time expired.
“It’s frustrating,” McClung said of the opportunities the Starfires couldn’t quite finish. “The last three games this week I felt like we outplayed the other team but didn’t get the result we wanted.
“Yeah it’s frustrating. The guys are frustrated. We’ll move on. We’ll be fine.”
 Jay County got its first goal of the game with 13:22 to play in the first half. Zach Chaney — the junior scored on penalty kick with less than a minute to play in the half — cut off a goal kick by Tyler Sprunger, and passed it up to Zaaron Lee, who then passed to Nathan Heitkamp inside the 18-yard box. Heitkamp dribbled right then placed a shot into the left side of the net.
It was his team-leading eighth goal of the season.
Schlosser, who is second on the team with four goals, gave the Patriots a 3-0 cushion 3 minutes, 36 seconds, into the second half.
Sprunger was at the left side of the goalie box attempting to corral a Patriot shot, and Schlosser was following the ball. Sprunger have a clean grasp on the ball, Schlosser slid to knock it away from him and then tapped the loose ball into the net.
“I had seen that the keeper didn’t have it in his hands so I decided to go for it,” Schlosser said of his goal. “I ended up executing.”
But those types of plays are what Daniels said the Patriots have been needing to do — follow shots to get secondary opportunities.
“We’ve been stressing that all year,” Daniels said. “We had a couple early in the year we didn’t follow and didn’t get a goal to go in.
“It is just following and getting those trash goals because you can get one a game if you hustle.”
Chaney’s goal — his second of the season — came on a penalty kick thanks to a hand ball in the penalty box by the Starfire defense. On the free kick, Chaney went to Sprunger’s left, and the keeper wasn’t able to stop the shot.
“It just happens sometimes,” Daniels said. “Hands get away from the body and you get a hand ball. Chaney stepped up and knocked it home like he’s supposed to.”