Spikers find ways to rally

The mark of a good team is being able to right the ship before things get out of hand.
Beating a handful of ranked opponents along the way sure helps too.
Those are both characteristics of Jay County High School’s volleyball team, especially after Tuesday’s four-set home win against Class 2A No. 9 Adams Central.
The Patriots, who are 14-2 for the second consecutive season, dropped the first set to the Jets 25-22.
At that point, the girls knew they were better than the loss they just endured. Before the second set, they rallied together and were able to turn things around.
“The first game we didn’t play together at all as a team,” senior Emilie Walter said. “We lacked communication. The second game we knew we had to pick it up.
“That’s what we were saying the whole time. We need to pull it together like we know how (and) not play to that level.”
So they did. The Patriots improved, won the next two sets for a 2-1 lead and were one game away from upsetting the Jets for the second consecutive season.
But things started to go awry again. Adams Central nabbed an 8-0 lead in set four thanks to a number of mental mistakes by Jay County.
Still, there was a sense on the court that, despite the poor performance to start the set, everything would be OK.
“We just beat them in the third game, we were coming off that and I think we were letting ourselves get down and get relaxed,” said senior Abby Wendel, whose team hosts Blackford Monday and travels to South Adams on Tuesday. “We weren’t ready to come out strong.”
And in volleyball, being relaxed and complacent with a lead is never good. Like Jay County did, teams can come roaring back.
Even Adams Central coach Ashley Beard said she saw her squad getting comfortable with the big lead. And as Jay County started to chip away at the deficit, the Jets were never able to recover.
It resulted in the Patriots’ third victory this season against a ranked opponent.
The first of those came on Aug. 18 against Madison-Grant. Jay County won the first set but lost the next to the Argylls, who finished 11th in the Class 2A preseason poll.
The Patriots rebounded to outlast Madison-Grant in five sets.
Jay County’s second such win was Sept. 3 at Wapahani. The Patriots had defeated the Raiders at home last year, and were poised to do the same on the road this season.
Wapahani, which was ranked No. 1 in Class 2A, won the first set 25-20, but didn’t score more than 20 points in a set the rest of the night.
“We beat (Wapahani) last year and maybe we weren’t the better team,” JCHS coach Fred Medler said after the win against the Raiders. “This year we were better than them.”
Not only were the Patriots better than the Raiders a couple weeks ago, they are a better team than the squad that finished 23-8 last year.
What a difference a year makes.
In 2014, Jay County lost twice to both Leo and Wes-Del, and also dropped matches to Delta, Heritage, Bellmont and the sectional opener to Homestead.
Jay County’s only losses so far this year are to Delta, which was third in Class 2A, Aug. 20, and a defeat Saturday to Class 4A No. 2 Brownsburg in the semifinal of the Noblesville Invitational.
The Patriots do not play Leo this year because it left the Allen County Athletic Conference. They play Wes-Del on Sept. 24 and Heritage on Oct. 1. Both of those matches are at home.
Then, the Patriots could meet Heritage again in the conference tournament, which begins Oct. 6 at Heritage in Monroeville. On Oct. 15 the Patriots return home to host Bellmont.
Those matches are very winnable, especially with the way the Patriots have been playing lately.
Junior hitter Abby Barcus had a career-high 25 kills Tuesday against Adams Central. Wendel has been nursing a back injury for most of the season but is nearly full strength. She had 10 kills Tuesday. Classmates Ava Wendel and Kylie Osborne rarely leave the court and are able to swing from anywhere. Osborne had a dozen digs to help subdue the Jet offense.
Lizzy Schoenlein, a junior setter, has proven she can do more than just pass to her teammates. While she had 47 assists Tuesday, she also had four kills, catching the Jets’ defense off guard by tipping it over the net instead of passing.
The Patriots have a feeling that, both literally and figuratively speaking, they are in mid-season form.
“I think we are playing really good, but there are times we are on a roller coaster where we play down to the level of our competition,” Wendel said. “We don’t really stay up the whole time, which we can work on.”
Jay County has proven, though, if it gets down in matches it is capable of climbing out of those holes.
“We are still playing really well and I think we can still be better,” Wendel said.
With perhaps the best team Medler has coached in his two-plus decades at Jay County, the Patriots are in the midst of another special season.