Jay stumbles in loss

Eight points.
In a match that totaled 179 points, a stretch of eight was enough to swing momentum.
With the match tied at one set apiece and the score in the third set knotted at 12, Wes-Del used an eight-point run to take control of the match.
The Patriots couldn’t fully recover.
Jay County High School’s volleyball team dropped its third match of the season Thursday in a 25-19, 19-25, 25-20, 25-21 defeat to the Class 2A No. 2 Wes-Del Warriors.
“Give them credit, they did what they needed to do to win,” said JCHS coach Fred Medler, whose team’s three losses have come against ranked opponents. “It wasn’t our A game. Probably wasn’t our B game, but they were the better team tonight.
“It wasn’t a good performance for us.”
Wes-Del coach Biff Wilson said his team was able to keep focus throughout the match. It helped the Warriors (16-4) to a number of streaks against Jay County (16-3), especially in the momentum-swinging third set.
“Too many times we won’t put together that kind of a run,” said Wilson, whose team had a pair of four-point streaks to take a 9-3 lead early in the third set. “Or, we’ll put together a small run and we’ll work our way back out of it.
“It’s like we’ll lose focus and other teams will take advantage of that. Tonight we were able to maintain focus and a big reason for that is we know how good Jay County is. They have size, they have youth (and) they have power.”
Medler called a timeout with his squad behind 9-3, and Jay County got back in contention when Kaelyn Weaver notched one of her three kills to start a streak of five Patriot points. Jay County tied the score at 10 and again at 12 before the Warriors strung together their lengthy run.
“If you look at those eight points, it wasn’t points they earned a lot of,” said Medler. Three of them were on kills by Eastern Michigan commit Alysa Sutton, the others were on mistakes by the Patriots.
“We could have gotten them out early in that one,” Medler said. “I think we hit the net from the left side (and) a ball in the net from the middle.”
Sutton played a crucial role on both offense and defense for the Warriors. She had game highs in kills (26) and digs (20).
Since Jay County had a size advantage on the front row, Wilson tried to get Sutton to slide to the outside rather than attack the middle. But the Warrior senior attacked the block of Abby Barcus, Abby Wendel, Ava Kunkler, Kylie Osborne and Weaver head on.
“She knows what she’s doing and, well, she’s got the license to do it,” Wilson said.
Four consecutive points in the fourth set gave Wes-Del a 5-2 lead, and after the Patriots fell behind 10-5 they got within one thanks to a block from Barcus and a kill from Osborne.
Later in the set, a service and attack error and a block from Sutton helped create separation for the Warriors, 16-11. Jay County got within two points twice — once at 18-16 and again at 19-17 — but its offense fizzled after that.
“You can’t give the other team a steady diet of hard stuff, and you can’t give them a steady diet of soft tips,” Medler said. “They knew we were in trouble and picked up the tip. And when we got swings, we either hit it into the net, hit it long or hit it right at them.”
Barcus, who made her presence known early with back-to-back spikes in the beginning of the match, finished with team highs in kills (20) and digs (16). Kunkler had nine kills, with Wendel and Osborne each adding seven. Wendel tallied 14 digs while Osborne tallied 10.
Throughout most of the match, Wes-Del was able to mix up its offense with Sutton’s strong swings with Paige Townsend’s soft touches. On many occasions, when Jay County had its blocks in place for the power shots, the Warriors tipped it over the defense. And when the Patriots were expecting the soft hit, Sutton sent rockets across the net.
“We backed off the wrong person,” Medler said.

Junior varsity
Jay County hung on for a narrow victory in the opening set.
The second went much more smoothly for the Patriots.
Jay County moved to 11-4 with a 25-23, 25-18 victory against Wes-Del.
Olivia Kunkler had seven kills to lead the Patriots. Hannah Ault and Sarah Walter both tallied five, and Audrey Shreve recorded three.
Walter had team highs in both aces (five) and digs (18), as she was the only Patriot to reach double digits in digs. Maggie Pryor tallied seven. Kendal Garringer and Alayna Aparicio had six and five digs respectively.
Kailee Denney recorded 18 assists.