Rough beginnings can turn around

It’s been a rough first three days of the season for the Patriots.
Jay County’s girls soccer team dropped its first game on Monday, a 4-0 shutout on the road at Richmond. A day later, the boys soccer team fell at home 2-0 to Muncie Central, the boys tennis team was shut out at the hands of the Alexandria Monroe Tigers and the Patriot volleyball team had a potential rally come up short against Madison-Grant.
The Patriot girls golf team is already four matches into its season that began Aug. 2. It placed second and fourth respectively in its invitationals and is 0-3 in dual matches.
Jay County’s boys and girls cross country teams open their season Tuesday.
But three days into the “official” start of the fall sports season, no Jay County team has a victory.
No need to sweat. I?promise.
Fortunes will turn. Victories will come.
After all, starting 0-1 is no big deal. What can become a backbreaker is if that defeat parlays into a season of tallies in the loss column.
Even then, what most may consider a disappointing season — a losing record — doesn’t have to be just that. Because in Indiana, in the grand scheme of things, the regular season is worthless.
It’s the postseason that matters.
For example, in the 2012-13 boys basketball season, Jay County entered the sectional tournament with a 20-2 record, including 14 wins in a row. The Patriots didn’t make it past the first round, losing 48-45 to Homestead.
Similarly, the 2008-09 JCHS girls basketball team went a perfect 18-0 through the regular season, only to lose to Fort Wayne South Side 51-49 in the first game of the sectional tournament.
The success those teams had in the regular season meant nothing. It’s the postseason that matters.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, in 2013 the South Adams football team limped through the regular season at 2-7, then won the sectional. A year later, the Starfires went 3-6 before winning the regional title.
What happened to the Stars in weeks one through nine didn’t matter.
It’s the postseason that counts.
Jay County’s 1993-94 boys basketball team went 1-19 in the regular season — it lost the final 14 games — before winning the program’s 10th sectional championship.
The regular season didn’t matter. The postseason did.
So no matter how the first week, the first month or the entire schedule plays out — whether it is all victories, mostly losses or somewhere between — it is no big deal.
The season can turn around.