Jay pulls away to reach semifinal

MONROEVILLE — Jay County has made a habit of starting slowly on offense in recent games.

Its defense has been stout though, keeping the Patriots ahead on the scoreboard.

Jay County High School’s girls basketball team overcame a poor offensive performance in the first half to pull away after intermission in defeating the host Heritage Patriots 55-35 Tuesday in the opening round of the Allen County Athletic Conference tournament.

“We just couldn’t hit the shots,” said JCHS coach Kirk Comer, whose team will host the tournament semifinal against South Adams at approximately 8 p.m. Friday. South Adams (10-7), which beat Jay County 50-40 on Dec. 23 in Berne, knocked off Bluffton in its tournament opener, 55-32.

With Jay County’s boys losing earlier Tuesday night to Heritage (see related story), JCHS will host the boys semifinal between Heritage and South Adams at 6 p.m. Friday. The Jay County and South Adams girls game will follow.

The JCHS girls (10-7), who are two-time defending conference tournament champions, missed their first 10 shots of the game and were 5-for-26 (19 percent) from the field in first half. Still, they led 21-12 at intermission. 

“We got easy shots,” Comer said. “We just missed them. It wasn’t like we were getting tough shots; we got good looks, we got some layups and we just did not convert them.”

In the third quarter, the visiting Patriots used a 9-3 run to double up Heritage (5-12) 30-15 midway through the period.

During the run, Hanna Ault scored on an assist from Britlyn Dues, who added two free throws for a 25-12 advantage. Abby Sheehan made a rare Heritage 3-pointer to trim the margin to 25-15, before Homan assisted on an Audrey Shreve basket from behind the arc. Homan capped the spurt with a put-back on a Shreve miss.

“I think that we get into the flow of the game a little more and we’re just overall more focused,” Homan said of Jay County’s slow starts recently. The Patriots struggled shooting in the first half during Friday’s win over Bluffton. “That’s definitely something we need to work on, but we just have to keep finding ways to win.”

Jumpers from Nevaeh Feasby and Monica Scott helped Heritage get as close as 33-23 late in the third quarter, but a 10-2 Jay County run stretching into the fourth quarter allowed the visiting Patriots to keep a double-digit lead.

Hanna Dillon and Ault had steals and fast-break layups on consecutive possessions as Jay County pushed the advantage to 51-31 with less than four minutes to play. Heritage never got closer than 18 points the rest of the way. 

“We changed some things up at halftime,” Comer said. “We wanted to attack the baseline more and get the ball in the middle more. We did that right from the beginning.”

Getting the ball inside also helped Jay County get open looks on the outside. It was 3-of-13 from long range in the first half and 4-for-8 after the break. Shreve had two second-half 3-pointers, with Homan and Ault each adding one.

Like her teammates, Homan overcame struggles shooting in the opening half. She was 1-for-6 from the field in the first 16 minutes and 4-for-6 after the break in finishing with a game-high 18 points.

“My shots weren’t falling in the first half but I’ve gotten a lot better at overlooking it,” said Homan, who also had a game-high seven rebounds. “I just keep telling myself that the next one’s going in. Eventually they did.”

Ault followed with 14 points, Dues chipped in nine points and Shreve finished with seven.

With the win over Heritage, Jay County will get a chance to avenge its regular season loss to South Adams. The defeat snapped the Patriots’ 22-game winning streak against conference rivals since joining the ACAC in 2014.

“Hopefully we can come out and play better,” Comer said. “Hopefully two good teams come out and play hard. They are a very good team. They took us out of things that we did last time and we’ll try to do better this time.”

Homan is relishing the opportunity to get another shot at the Starfires.

“It’s a tournament game,” she said, “We’re all psyched about Friday. We want to win and we’re going to try our best to do that in order to get to (the championship game) Saturday.”