Jay defense strikes again

Many of the Patriots’ successes this year have been a byproduct of a stingy defense.
The Rockets were the latest to experience it.
Jay County High School’s girls basketball team held the Union (Modoc) Rockets without a field goal for more than 10 minutes Thursday and dominated the glass on both ends of the floor in a 64-25 rout on senior night.
“That was definitely our goal coming in,” JCHS senior Abby Wendel, who had a game-high 13 points and shared the team high with five assists, said of her team’s defense. “We knew we were going to have to come out strong and shut down that confidence of theirs.”
Fellow senior Lyla Muhlenkamp — she added to her 3-point total with three triples in the third quarter to finish with 11 points — said she was proud of how her team started the game.
“We came out stronger than we have the past two games,” she said. Muhlenkamp now has 54 3-pointers on the season, which is tied for fourth in the state. The leader, New Castle’s Samanatha Underwood, has 63.
Coach Kirk Comer agreed with his sharpshooter.
“I was really pleased with getting off to a good start,” said Comer, whose Patriot squad moves to 17-3 and travels to Poneto on Saturday to take on Southern Wells. A win against the Raiders will lock up the regular season Allen County Athletic Conference championship for the Patriots in back-to-back seasons. “The last few games we haven’t gotten out to a good start,” he said. “We came out more mentally focused. I thought we got off to a really good start.”
Jay County controlled the game from the opening tip, scoring the first 11 points of the contest behind two points each from Wendel, Muhlenkamp, their classmate Ava Kunkler and five points from junior Taylor Homan.
The three seniors — Kunkler (eight points), Wendel and Muhlenkamp —combined to score 32 points.
Another nine-point run later in the quarter put Jay County on top 22-3 before Union (13-5) scored the final five points of the quarter.
But then Jay County tallied 15 consecutive points to start the second period, kicked off by back-to-back 3-pointers from sophomore Hanna Ault.
She scored all nine of her points in the first half.
It wasn’t until there were 21 seconds remaining before halftime that Union scored again on a pair of free throws from Rylee Davis. The Rocket senior later made a layup with 6:03 remaining in the third quarter to stop a stretch of 10 minutes, 20 seconds, without a Union field goal.
“Credit goes to Jay County,” said Union coach Andrew Moore. “They pressured us and they played really well. They had a good game plan coming in and their players, they shot well. They played well defensively and offensively.”
Not only were the Rockets missing the few shots they took — they were 3-of-13 in the first half — they were getting beat on the boards on both sides of the court.
Jay County had a 40-14 advantage on the glass with 22 offensive rebounds. Kunkler had a game-high seven rebounds, with Shelby Caldwell and Homan each hauling in five boards. All 12 Patriots who saw the court tallied at least one rebound.
“We talk about that all the time,” Comer said. “Our goal is to out-rebound our opponent every game. Our goal is if we miss a shot to get it.
“I thought we did a really good job of that tonight.”
The Patriots didn’t just camp underneath the hoop and box out the Rockets, but they were also beating the visitors to rebounds that took big caroms off the rim.
Muhlenkamp (three rebounds) and Homan each grabbed boards off of their missed 3-pointers on a handful of occasions, and Wendel also streaked through the paint to haul in boards near the free throw line.
“That is something coach Comer wanted us to do,” Wendel said. “We were getting offensive rebounds if we weren’t getting the shot.”

Junior varsity
Audrey Shreve scored all of her game-high 19 points during the first half in leading Jay County to a 49-34 victory against the Muncie Burris varsity squad.
Jay County (17-0) raced to a 17-4 lead after the first quarter, and went toe-to-toe with Burris in the second to double up the Owls at half, 28-14.
A 14-point effort after intermission pushed the Patriots’ lead to 42-20 after three quarters.
Shreve hit a trio of 3-pointers to help reach her game-high total. Klarisa Hemmelgarn added 10 points to give the Patriots two players in double figures. Sam Twigg followed with eight points, Hanna Dillon chipped in with five, and Gwen Omstead added three points.