Jay wins despite struggles

The Patriots were far from their best Tuesday night.

They were still able to cruise past the Bearcats.

On an evening in which the Jay County High School girls basketball team wasn’t in its best shooting form, the Patriots still protected their home court with a 51-30 victory against the Muncie Central Bearcats.

“I was happy to get a win,” said JCHS coach Kirk Comer, whose team moves to 7-2, is 4-0 at home and has won three consecutive games for the first time this season. “We didn’t shoot the ball very well tonight, which is disappointing. We rushed some shots. We’ve got to do a better job of taking the good shots that we have (and) setting our feet.

“The biggest disappointment is rebounding. We have got to do a better job of rebounding. They got a ton of offensive rebounds. We’ve got to do a better job of that.”

The Patriots, who travel to Adams Central on Friday, made just one of their first three shots against a Bearcat team that was coming off back-to-back wins against Richmond and Arsenal Tech.

Consecutive 3-pointers from Garynn Sims-Jones put Muncie Central (5-3) ahead 6-0 before Izzy Rodgers put JCHS on the board with the first of her four triples.

Down 8-5 later in the quarter, Jay County scored eight consecutive points — Renna Schweiterman assisted on a Sophie Saxman field goal and a Madison Dirksen trey before Saxman helped her drain a shot of her own from the arc — to turn the deficit into a 13-8 lead.

Bearcat turnovers on consecutive possessions aided in Jay County overtaking Muncie Central.

The Patriots overall used an 18-5 run over the final five minutes of the period to go ahead 23-13 at the quarter break. And before halftime, Jay County scored seven consecutive points — four from Schwieterman — to lead 32-18 at intermission.

“We went to the half-court trap which caused them some problems and we were able to get some easy baskets,” Comer said. Jay County’s defense forced 16 total turnovers, 10 of which in the first half. “We were able to turn them over and give us some more opportunities.”

Jay County shot 37% (10-of-27) in the first half but went 7-for-20 (35%) in the final 16 minutes. Schwieterman, who had seven points before halftime, missed all six of her shot attempts in the second half, although she dished half of her game-high six assists during the same period of time.

Dirksen, meanwhile, scored eight of her game-high 17 points with Schwieterman going cold, and Rodgers sank a trio of 3-pointers after the break to end with 16 points.

“We need them to step up,” Comer said. “You can’t count on Renna every single time to score the points. But there are a lot of other things to the games besides points and she did a good job with those other things.

“I was glad to see those other girls step up and score.”

Muncie Central’s Jasiah Scaife led the Bearcats with 15 points. She finished with six points in each of the first and third quarters. Many of her points were off second-chance buckets. She had four offensive rebounds and led all players with 10 boards.

Sims-Jones nearly joined Scaife in double figures with nine points.



Junior varsity

Jay County outscored Muncie Central by 11 points in the first quarter on its way to a 37-26 victory.

The Patriots had a 14-3 edge after seven minutes, and added one to the advantage to go on top 24-12 at halftime. The home team extended the margin to 35-23 at the end of the third.

Danielle May led Jay County in scoring with nine points. Molly Muhlenkamp, Daisy Muhlenkamp and Meredith Dirksen had six points apiece. Cash Hollowell joined in with four points.