Talk with Kirk Comer about his squad long enough and he’ll probably utter some variation of the following sentence:
He just wants the Patriots to be playing their best come the sectional tournament.
Wins, and losses, during the regular season don’t mean much.
Well, in the grand scheme of things they do. Jay County High School’s girls basketball team is a staggering 32-1 against Allen County Athletic
Conference opponents since joining the conference. That’s including three regular season and conference tournament titles.
But at the end of the day Comer is right.
Being at your best when it’s a win-or-go-home game is of the utmost importance.
Jay County is in Class 3A this year for the first time since the 2006-07 season. With a month left to play and the ACAC tournament less than two weeks away, the Patriots enter 2018 with an 8-6 record.
At face value, 8-6 may seem like a down year for the Patriots given they were 16-8 a season ago and 19-5 the previous campaign.
But looking further into the first 14 games of the year and 8-6 is a solid mark considering the schedule.
Four of Jay County’s six losses are to current state-ranked teams.
The first was a 51-40 loss to Oak Hill (12-1) on Nov. 14. The Golden Eagles are the top-ranked team in Class 2A and sit at 12-1. Their only blemish is a 59-45 defeat to the Class 4A No. 13 Fort Wayne South Side Archers (12-0), who knocked off the Patriots 86-60 on Dec. 2.
Jay County has also come up short against defending Class 4A state champion and fifth-ranked Homestead (13-1) 63-49, and fell to Class 2A No. 6 Winchester (13-1) by a score of 59-55.
Those aren’t bad losses. Jay County is one of three teams this year to score 40 or more points against Oak Hill. Only two teams have put up more points against Winchester than the Patriots did.
Jay County scored 49 against Homestead, the fourth-highest point total the Spartans have allowed this year, and only Heritage Christian (64) has scored more against South Side than Jay County.
The Patriots’ other two losses are a 45-38 defeat Nov. 30 to New Castle (6-9) — the lowest JCHS point total this season — and a 45-41 loss Dec. 9 to a Fort Recovery team that is 5-1 and likely to be ranked when the Ohio poll is released after the first of the year.
Combined, the six teams that have beaten Jay County are a whopping 61-13. Four have only one loss and another is undefeated.
Needless to say, Jay County is battle tested.
By the same token it has dominated its other games, winning by an average of 26 points. That includes a 71-11 drubbing of the Blackford Bruins on Dec. 12, which kicked off a string of three consecutive JCHS victories.
As January rolls around there’s no reprieve from the gauntlet the Patriots have endured. They host Class 3A No. 3 Concordia Cadets on Tuesday and conference rival Bluffton Tigers Jan. 5. The Cadets and Tigers have 11 wins apiece and just five combined losses. Following the ACAC tournament Jan. 9 through 13 — Jay County hosts Southern Wells in the quarterfinal — the Patriots meets Class 3A No. 11 Norwell (8-4) in Ossian before a matchup with sectional rival Delta.
Sure, if the Patriots head into sectional with a 17-6 record it would be ideal but it’s not the main goal.
The primary task — as Comer will proudly repeat — is for the Patriots to be playing their best basketball at the end of the regular season.
The 8-6 record thus far isn’t so much a gauge to how the Patriots have played, rather a testament to how much more challenging the schedule has been than years past.
At the beginning of the season Jay County was up to the task. The same is true two months later and the girls are jumping into 2018 with their sights set on winning the program’s first sectional title since 2006.
