Stars stop JCHS streak

The Starfires continued to stay hot in the second, as Pierce followed a Patriot miss with two of her six points and Calyssa Lehman made her only field goal attempt to get the home team within one, 15-14. Then back-to-back buckets from Wurster gave South Adams a lead less than midway through the second quarter and it never trailed the rest of the way.

“They got off to an incredibly good start,” Freeman said. “They struggled the rest of the way from the field. I wouldn’t necessarily say we lit it up, but we were able to get to the foul line a little bit and we did a nice job finishing there.”

After going 5-for-10 in the first quarter, Jay County missed all 16 shots it took during the second. The Starfires outscored the visiting Patriots 11-2 in the second frame, with the only JCHS points coming by way of a pair of free throws from Kendra Muhlenkamp. South Adams led 21-17 at intermission.

“For us to be leading at half with Lexi (Dellinger) only having two points … that says a lot about all of our girls and the fact that they stepped up at different points in the game.”

Wurster finished with a game-high 17 points and added 11 rebounds notch the double-double. 

“She’s come a long way,” said Freeman, noting that as a sophomore Wurster often got herself in foul trouble in the first half. Her lone foul against Jay County was in the fourth quarter. “She carried some of that load early and was a big presence for us.”

Lehman had 11 rebounds, seven of which came on the defensive side of the court in the second half. She also scored five points.

Dellinger was a perfect 10-for-10 on charity tosses despite going 1-of-10 from the field. South Adams was 20-for-26 from the free-throw line while Jay County shot 11-for-17.

Typically known for its defense, Jay County fell victim to a solid effort by South Adams. Oftentimes, the Patriots weren’t able to get comfortable in their offense and were left taking hurried shots that seemed to go anywhere but through the hoop.

“You have to give them credit, they caused us to have the problems that we had,” Comer said.

Jay County was 12-of-50 (24 percent) from the field, with half of its shots coming from behind the 3-point line.

“We just wanted to make sure we were finding shooters,” Freeman said. “Obviously they have a few girls who can shoot it a little better than the others so we wanted to find them.

“For the most part we did a pretty good job with that.”

Taylor Homan scored 11 of her team-high 16 points in the second half for Jay County. She was the lone Patriot to reach double figures as Hanna Ault was second on the team with seven points, while Britlyn Dues and Gwen Omstead scored six apiece.

Jay County got within striking distance in the fourth quarter when Homan hit a jumper from the left elbow to make it 31-30 with 6:10 to play, but a Dellinger bucket and an old-fashioned three-point play from Wurster extended the Starfire lead again. In the final four minutes South Adams was 12-of-14 from the free throw line, including sinking eight in a row.



Junior varsity

Jay County started strong and never looked back in a 37-29 victory over South Adams.

The Patriots (16-1) got out to a 16-5 lead after the opening quarter before pushing the advantage to 22-7 at halftime. South Adams cut into the deficit slightly in the third period to trail 27-14 heading into the final quarter. It put up a late push but came up short.

Hannah Phillips led a balanced Jay County effort with seven points, and Sam Twigg followed with six. Kendal Garringer and Claire Dirksen chipped in five points each, while Hallie Fields, Mikele Suman and Macey Wietzel added four points apiece.

Taylor Augsburger and Emilee Myers both had a game-high nine points for South Adam, which also got six points from Ally Weaver and five from Lydia Loshe.