Patriots beat the Bruins

HARTFORD CITY — Eli Dirksen set the tone early for the Patriots.

Blake Kahlig and Carter Wellmen followed suit.

Tucker Griffin and Jacob Monroe needed a little bit extra to pull out their wins.

Kadyn Carpenter and Alex Miller came up just short of the sweep for the Patriots.

The Jay County High School boys tennis team cruised to a 4-1 victory over the Blackford Bruins on Monday, but came up short of the sweep in a highly contested No. 1 doubles match.

“They played well,” said Jay County assistant coach Andrea Garringer, who stood in during coach Donald Gillespie’s absence. “We had a switch in our lineup and I think it went OK. I don’t know Blackford’s official record, but I felt like we were stronger in the long run anyway.”

Dirksen stumbled in the first game against Blackford’s No. 1 singles player Trenton Norton. A pair of double faults and two forehands Dirksen hit too hard gave Norton the opening game, but the senior righted the ship to cruise to a 6-1, 6-0 victory.

“Eli I wasn’t too concerned (about),” Garringer said. “Eli is Eli. He plays consistently and comes to win every time.”

Blake Kahlig and Carter Wellman followed Dirksen’s lead by taking down Hunter Huffman and Colt Pennington in the No. 2 doubles match 6-3, 6-2. Huffman and Pennington struggled to handle the Patriots’ serves at times leading to the pair’s second victory on the season.

Kahlig and Wellman previously won on Aug. 26. They took a loss on Sept. 5 and hadn’t played together since as Gillespie tried different combinations at the position. Out of all No. 2 doubles combinations, this is just the fourth win for Jay County (5-8). (Kahlig and Monroe have the other two.)

“I mean, we knew we could have played better, but we still got it done at the end of the day,” Kahlig said of the first set. “We were just hitting better in the second set. We were talking more to each other.”

Playing in his first singles match, Monroe needed to win seven games to claim the first set of the No. 3 singles match against Owen Norton.

After the 7-5 victory, Monroe jumped on his opponent early in the second set to take the first three games. With a 5-2 advantage, the JCHS junior trailed 40-love, but came back to win the set without needing an eighth game.

While the first set of the No. 3 singles match was tightly contested, Tucker Griffin dominated the opening set of the No. 2 singles contest for a 6-1 victory, only dropping the second game.

 To take the set, Griffin had to run up on a short ball and hit a forehand out of Tanner Roberts’ reach. The second set didn’t go quite as smoothly. Griffin and Roberts went back-and-forth, neither able to gain more than a two-game advantage. Eventually, the Jay County senior prevailed for a 6-4 victory capped off with a hard volley out of Roberts’ reach.

“I just need to put in 100% effort every time,” Griffin said. “That’s one thing I pride myself on and I got lazy in that second set and it almost slipped away from me. So just making sure to (give 100% effort) everytime is important.”

Carpenter and Miller edged out the Bruins’ No. 1 doubles duo of Jake Dillon and Mason McFeely for a 7-5 win in the first set. Things started to slip for the Patriots in the later half of the second set, as they fell 6-4.

Dillon and McFeely then got the jump on them in the third, taking five of the first seven games. An error by both the Bruins and a pair of Miller volleys gave the Patriots some hope as they cut the deficit to 5-3, but Blackford prevailed in the ninth game despite JCHS forcing deuce five times.

Despite the individual loss, Jay County has now won four of its last six matches after a tough start to the season. The Patriots followed the win with a road trip to Adams Central on Tuesday before they host the Winchester Golden Falcons on Thursday.

Photo Gallery

Jay County boys tennis at Blackford (9/16/2024)