Jay wins invitational

Patriot volleyball coach Fred Medler challenged Kaelyn Weaver prior to the start of the tournament.
He told her to clean up her approach at the net to get better attacks, and to also be more of a presence on defense.
The junior took heed to his advice.
Weaver tallied 26 kills and led the team with nine blocks in helping the Jay County High School volleyball team to a 3-0 mark on Saturday to win the Patriot Invitational it hosted for the third straight year.
“I had to go out there and do what he said pretty much,” said Weaver, who had 11 kills in a 17-25, 25-20, 16-14 victory over the Carroll (Flora) Cougars in the second match of the day. The Patriots also swept the Frankton Eagles (25-22, 25-16) and Union City Indians (25-16, 26-18).
“I just tried my best, I guess,” she said.
After cruising to the win against Union City — during which Weaver had three blocks and a kill in a four-point span — the Patriots squared off against a tall, strong Cougar squad.
Jay County (15-9) trailed 11-8 the second set before Weaver notched another block. Kailee Denney then rattled off back-to-back aces. Carrol’s Elizabeth Eurit ended the Patriots’ streak at three points, then Weaver notched yet another block to get Jay County within one, 13-12. A kill from Britlyn Dues later tied the set at 16, and four straight points gave the Patriots the lead for good.
Dues finished with 14 kills, which was third on the team behind Abby Barcus (30) and Weaver.
In the third set, Jay County again fell behind 11-7, but used stellar defensive play with back-to-back digs from Chloe Trissel to keep a point alive, as well as a block from Audrey Shreve and Weaver kill to tie the score at 11. Carroll nabbed three of the next five points to serve match point, but a Barcus kill tied the score yet again.
Then Barcus, a Wright State University commit, tipped the ball for a kill to give the Patriots a match point opportunity, then the senior notched her 15th kill of the match for the winner.
“I really didn’t know whether we’d get them this year,” Medler said of the Cougars. “They are very good. I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if we would have lost to them.
“But what I saw out of our bunch was just that tenacity, that fight, that want to play all the way through to the end of the match.
“It was a huge win for the mental toughness of our girls and the fact now they believe they can play against anybody.”
Weaver agreed.
“It was intense,” she said. “It was great. That was one of them I just really wanted. We went after it as a team and we played really well together. We fought for every point.”
In addition to leading the team in kills, Barcus also had a team-best 28 digs. Trissel finished with 27 and shared the team-high of four aces with Kailee Denney, who recorded 39 assists.
With the victory against Carroll, as well as overcoming a deficit in the first set against Frankton, Medler and Weaver both said they hope to springboard the success from the weekend into the Allen County Athletic Conference tournament this week.
“I feel really good about it,” said Weaver, whose teammates open the tourney at 6 p.m. Tuesday against Bluffton at Heritage. The winner meets top-seeded South Adams at 6 p.m. Thursday with the final slated for 7:15 p.m. Thursday.
“The Carroll win was a plus and now we know that we can play that well,” she said.

Junior varsity
Jay County’s junior varsity team went 1-1 on the day, finishing second to the Frankton Eagles in the Patriot Invitational.
The Patriots defeated Union City 25-16, 25-16, before losing to the Eagles in three sets.
Scores for the Frankton match and complete stats were not available.