On the board(s)

MUNCIE — It’s been a rough go for the Patriots in the first half of the season.

Sometimes it’s the 3-point line that kills them. On other days, it’s turnovers.

This time, it was the offensive glass.

The Jay County High School basketball team struggled to secure the ball after missed shots, giving up 14 offensive rebounds to the Muncie Central Bearcats in a 55-36 loss Saturday that extended their losing streak to five.

“It’s been a breakdown every time,” Jay County coach Jerry Bomholt said. “Here’s our problem, we find the most inopportune time to do things wrong that costs us.”

The Bearcats (5-5) dominated Jay County (2-6) on the boards. The total margin showed Muncie Central outrebounded Jay County 34-19. A more telling way of looking at the rebound totals comes in the form of 13 defensive rebounds for the Patriots and 14 offensive rebounds for the Bearcats, meaning Munice Central pulled down more of its missed shots than Jay County could.

“We just missed so many assignments,” Bomholt said. “There’s a block-out area you’re supposed to be at. We had to move some people and they didn’t even come close to getting to the right vicinity to get them blocked off.”

Three offensive re-bounds resulted in trips to the foul line, one was kicked out for a three and four more were put right back up and in, totaling 15 second-chance points.

Demarkis Cole collected the most offensive rebounds for Muncie Central with eight. He added one defensive rebound to give him nine total.

Cole also scored a game-high 25 points by shooting 9-for-16 (56.3%) from the field and 5-for-9 (55.6%) at the free throw line. In the third quarter, Cole went on a 8-0 run individually from the 3-minutes, 48-second mark when he scored a transition layup until 2:10 when he got a putback on another fast break. The other two baskets came off a 3-point play in which he was fouled on a drive by Westly Bihn and another transition opportunity.

“He’s a stat-sheet stuffer and does a little bit of everything,” MCHS coach Justin Ullom said. “Some nights it’s 20 points, some nights it’s 10 points, but he’s always active. He’s always deflecting, rebounding, getting steals and he’s turned into a vocal leader here the last week.”

The Patriots started the game off strong in the first quarter, even developing a 14-9 lead. Levi Muhlenkamp and Liam Garringer both hit a pair of threes to get things rolling for Jay County.

Once again, the second quarter is where the game took a turn for the worse for the Patriots.

Four Patriot turnovers and five Bearcat offensive rebounds gave Muncie Central ample opportunities for easy baskets, while Jay County’s only points came off baskets by Gradin Swoveland and Trevin Dunnington.

While giving up five offensive rebounds, Jay County ended up with only one team defensive rebound on a ball that landed out of bounds after a missed shot.

“We’d make a play, get a stop, but give it right back to them, don’t get anything out of it and then they’d go down and get a score,” Bomholt said. “If you do that three or four times, there’s eight points and that changes the game wholeheartedly.

“We just don’t have the basketball mentality to make it up. Now, if we could score, it’d be different, but we just missed so many layups and free throws. …

“Our goal tonight was to get the game to the fourth quarter where we had a chance to win. We didn’t. We started off really well, but once again, in the second quarter we’re turning it over and they’re scoring.”

The Patriots gave up three different runs of eight or more points, pushing the Bearcats’ lead to 47-28 going into the final period.

Despite working a lot on handling ball pressure, Bomholt said the Patriots continued to struggle with turnovers. In the third quarter alone, JCHS coughed up the ball nine times.

Bomholt would ideally like his team to turn the ball over fewer than 10 times in a game, but couldn’t do that against MCHS as it finished with 19.

Along with the loss, the Patriots had some more bad news. After making his first varsity start a week prior, freshman Jayden Comer will be sidelined while recovering from an appendectomy.

The loss saw some slight improvements from the previous defeats to Class 3A No. 5 Delta and Class 2A No. 1 Wapahani. The Patriots assisted on only four field goals in those games combined. On Saturday, they had seven assists. Defensively, they gave up fewer threes, as the Bearcats only hit seven opposed to Wapahani’s 12.

“Did we make a little bit of progress? Yeah, a little bit,” Bomholt said. “But not enough to satisfy us. We’ve got a lot more work to do.”

Junior varsity

A dominant second half propelled Jay County to a 41-21 win over Muncie Central on Saturday in the junior varsity game.

The Patriots (6-2) held an eight-point lead going into halftime. Their defense suffocated the Bearcats in the third quarter as a pair of layups by Cole Forthofer, a basket and a pair of free throws from Eli Dirksen won Jay County the quarter by an 8-0 margin.

In the fourth, the Patriots hit five shots for 11 points to ice the game while the Bearcats could only muster seven points.

Forthofer and Dirksen both reached double-digits with 13 and 10 points, respectively. ZaTavion Smith was Muncie Central’s leading scorer with 10.