Patriots trounce Bruins

The Patriots faced a winless Bruins squad.
It gave them an opportunity to expand their bench.
It gave Jay County an opportunity to expand its bench.
The Jay County High School volleyball team got a good look at its young players Monday in a three-set sweep of the Blackford Bruins.
The Patriots won easily, 25-12, 25-13, 25-7, to move to 15-2 on the season.
Blackford, however, is still winless at 0-18, and has won only three sets all year.
“It’s always good to get everyone playing time because you never know when you’re going to call on them,” said JCHS coach Fred Medler, who told his team Thursday he was going to bring up freshmen setters Kendal Garringer and Kailee Denney. “When you’re called on you have to do your job. You can’t go out there and make a mistake when you’re subbed in.”
Garringer made her varsity debut in the second set, and helped the Patriots score six consecutive points after falling behind 3-2. She served three straight points forcing Blackford coach Melissa Antrim to take a time out trailing 7-3, and the Bruins had a difficult time receiving her serve after the break to fall behind 8-3.
Blackford got two of the next three points on a pair of errors by Jay County before Abby Barcus went on a serving spree.
The junior served Jay County to an 11-point run, including five aces. Three of those were consecutive. The first was near the middle of the back line that the Bruins let fall for a point, the second went untouched down the left side of the court and the third fell short before the back row could dig it out.
See Trounce page 9
TROUNCE
Continued from page 10
“We’re always shooting for runs of three points or more at a time,” said Medler, whose squad had eight such streaks against the Bruins. “I thought the kids played behind the service line very well.”
The Patriots only missed three of their 73 serves on the night, serving nearly 96 percent.
Jay County’s four main hitters — Ava Kunkler (11), Abby Wendel (six), Kylie Osborne (five) and Barcus (seven) — accounted for 29 of the team’s 39 kills. Medler was still pleased with the role of his reserve players.
“By and large, all year long our kids have come off the bench and performed what we’ve asked them to do,” said Medler, whose team looks to move to 4-0 in the Allen County Athletic Conference when it travels to play South Adams at 6 p.m. tonight. “If there is a sever that has stepped back and missed two or three, the next kid has stepped up and performed well.”
Emilie Walter and Britlyn Dues had six and four kills respectively. Kaelyn Weaver and Abby Muhlenkamp each tallied one. Dues also served 10 points, a total that was second only to Barcus. Sophomore libero Chloe Trissel had seven digs.
Lizzy Schoenlein, the everyday setter for the Patriots, had 18 assists before giving way to the pair of freshmen. Denney totaled six assists, and Garringer had four.
Many of the Bruins’ points — 14 of 22 — came from fixable mistakes from the Patriots, whether it was attacking wide or long, hitting the net on a serve or while playing the ball, or a bad serve receive.
At the same time, Jay County simply overmatched a short Blackford squad that only has three upperclassmen on its varsity roster.
“We’re a young team,” said Antrim, the Bruins’ first-year coach. “We just don’t have the energy. We lack in a lot of confidence too.”

Junior varsity
The Patriots set the tone for the night with a commanding 25-4, 25-8 victory against the Bruins.
Olivia Kunkler paced Jay County (9-4) with eight kills. She also had two digs and was 4-for-4 from the service line.
Hanna Ault chipped in with three kills, with Alayna Aparicio and Sarah Walter adding two kills apiece.
Randi Ferguson and Walter had 15 and 14 service points respectively, and they combined to go a perfect 30-for-30 from the service line.
Garringer had five assists, with Ferguson, Denney and Aparicio each adding two.