Jay finishes seventh at Winchester Invitational

WINCHESTER — Caleb DeRome often finishes as the Patriots’ top golfer. This weekend, they had a new lead, but it wasn’t enough to get the job done.

The Jay County boys golf team finished with 345 strokes to place seventh at the Winchester Invitational at Winchester Golf Club on Saturday.

Noblesville narrowly edged out Westville for first place by just two strokes. The Knights finished with a score of 302.

Sims put together the best day for Jay County. He shot just three strokes over par for a 75.

Noblesville’s Drew Werkley and Jackson Umthum both had the low score of 72 on the day.

Caleb DeRome was the only other Patriot to keep his score under 90 strokes. He finished the day at 81.

Cody DeHoff and Isaac Homan rounded out the team score with 92 and 97, respectively.

Luke Fugiett’s 104 did not affect the Patriots’ final score.

Walk off winner

WAPAHANI — Parker Nichols walked off against Woodlan on April 18 with a single to left field. It wasn’t as flashy, but he did it again over the weekend.

Nichols got hit by a pitch to walk off the Greenwood Christian Academy Cougars 9-8 as the Jay County High School baseball team split at the Wapahani Invitational on Saturday.

Nichols’ RBI was the third of the seventh inning. The Cougars (6-7) retired the first two batters before a single, a walk and an error loaded the bases. Drew Schemenaur walked to drive in the first run and Sam Myers reached base on an error to tie the game for Jay County (8-6).

Myers earned the win as he pitched the first 1 ⅓ innings and the final two. He gave up five runs (only two earned) on six hits, while striking out four batters.

Jay County fell to the Park Tudor Panthers 8-2 in the first game of the day.

The Panthers (10-1) got ahead early with three runs in the first and piled two on in the fourth and three more in the sixth.

Jay County’s two runs came on catcher’s interference in the first inning and a balk in the sixth.

Kade Sommers suffered the loss. He gave up four runs over 3 ⅔ innings pitched.

Patriots take second

NEW CASTLE — The Jay County track teams both managed to finish second at New Castle on Friday afternoon.

The boys gathered 88.5 points to beat four teams, but Wapahani ran away with the top spot with 146.5 points.

The girls’ 92 points put some distance between the Patriots and the bottom three teams, but couldn’t overcome the host Trojans with 108.

The boys walked away with two individual victories. Adam Alig earned the top spot in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 16.1 seconds, while Garrett Hidy claimed the long jump with a mark of 18 feet, 3.75 inches.

The girls took first place in five events. Morgan DeHoff had the strongest day, winning both the 100 hurdles (17.3 seconds) and 300 hurdles (51.8 seconds). She was also on the 4x100 relay team with Matilda Mende, Jenna Dues and Ariel Beiswanger that finished first in 51.8 seconds.

Molly Muhlenkamp earned the other individual victory with a jump of 4 feet, 10 inches, in the high jump.

Aixa Lopez, Mya Kunkler, Cash Hollowell and Makinsey Murphy took the top spot in the 4x400 relay in 4 minutes, 29 seconds.

Pats nearly split

NEW CASTLE — The Jay County junior varsity girls tennis team finished 8-7 overall on Saturday in a 7-team invitational at New Castle.

Faith Fualkner claimed two of those wins out of the No. 2 singles position. She started her day with an 8-2 win over an opponent from Blue River before beating Shenandoah’s No. 2 player by the same score. She dropped her third match 8-2 to a player from East Central.

The No. 1 doubles pair of Audrey Muhlenkamp and Courtney Harris as well as the No. 2 doubles duo of Kenzie Tobe and Lauren Fisher finished 2-1 on the day.

Muhlenkamp and Harris dropped their first match to New Castle 8-5 before pulling off wins against Knightstown 8-2 and East Central 8-4.

Tobe and Fisher swept Knightstown 8-0 to open the day, but lost to East Central 8-4 after. They finished the invitational with an 8-4 win over Shenandoah.

Raylah Newton and Trinity Glassford both finished 1-2 out of the No. 1 singles spot and No. 3 singles position, respectively.

Paul Dirksen powers

The Jay County Junior High School coed tennis team opened its season against Adams Central on Saturday, going 5-13 on the day.

Paul Dirksen hits a left-handed volley during the Jay County Junior High School tennis match against Adams Central on Saturday. Despite having a broken right thumb, Dirksen pulled off two wins. (The Commercial Review/Andrew Balko)

 

Despite suffering from a broken right thumb, Paul Dirksen was the only Patriot with multiple wins on the day. His first victory came from a doubles match with Josh Brown, which the pair won 8-2. The next win came with Grady Warvel. They took the match 8-1.

Henry Dirksen and Maddie Clark played in the most dominant match, sweeping their opponents 8-0.

Claudia Dirksen and Kaitlyn Fisher teamed up for an 8-3 win.

The other victory came from Maria Laux and Elly Byrum in their second ever match. They won 8-1 after dropping the opener 8-6.

Jay County struggled in singles matches as the Jets took all nine contests.