Beating some birds

WINCHESTER — While there are plenty of similarities in Eagles and Falcons, they aren’t actually closely related.

Despite both being birds of prey, Eagles share a similar genome to hawks and vultures, while Falcons have genetic similarities with parrots.

Another similarity between the Eagles and Golden Falcons are the strength in their volleyball programs. But another difference is when the Patriots hosted the Eagles, they lost a five-set heartbreaker, but when they traveled south, they took down the Golden Falcons in four.

Jay County High School’s volleyball team shook some of the bad taste Delta left in its mouth by taking down the Winchester Community Golden Falcons 25-21, 18-25, 25-12, 25-19 on Tuesday at Winchester Field House.

“I just think it was huge because, we talked about when we lost to Delta, it’s not often when we walk out feeling like we were the better team that night (and lost),” said JCHS coach Amy Dillon. “I can’t say that I felt like practice was great last night … one thing we talked about was a video my husband and I watched about that you shouldn’t be focusing on the scoreboard and the win. You really should be focused on winning in practice and just taking care of the next play.

“I think a lot of times we get hung up on calls and hung up on things that are not going our way.

“I felt like tonight we did a lot better at that and just taking care of the next ball.”

Jay County (2-1) played its best volleyball when running its 5-1 lineup with Paisley Fugiett distributing the ball, which it ran during the first, third and fourth sets.

When Fugiett was running the offense alone, she dished out 27 assists to Hallie Schwieterman, who had a team-high 11 kills, Brenna Schmiesing (nine kills), Mya Kunkler (seven), Maria Hemmelgarn (six) and Elizabeth Barnett (three).

“I feel like we have a team where, we’re stacked,” said Fugiett, who had four kills of her own as well. “When we’re all on, we are all on and most of the time we’re not all off. If somebody’s off, we have somebody else to step in and take their turn to put it down for us.”

While the Patriots had a more cohesive offense during the sets they ran a 5-1, it started on the defensive end.

During the second set, JCHS gave up four of the six Golden Falcon (5-2) aces, made a fifth error on another serve receive, suffered three ball handling errors and the sole center line violation of the match.

The one bright spot of the Patriots’ defense in the second set was that it only gave up five kills. Four of those kills belonged to Auden Huimmel, who led all attackers with 16 put downs.

“I told them before that she was going to get kills and we’ve just got to accept that and not worry about it when she does,” Dillon said. “If our block isn’t in position and our defense can’t get in position, we just have to fix that. I think our block did a better job at getting on her towards the end of that match.”

JCHS junior Carley Trinidad receives a serve during the fourth set of the Patriots’ four-set win over Winchester on Tuesday. Outside of a rough second set, the back row serve received well, only allowing two aces in 53 attempts (3.8%). (The Commercial Review/Andrew Balko)

 

While Lilyana Mayberry supported Hummel’s efforts at the net with nine kills herself, Jay County’s height bothered the Golden Falcons, leading to a 5.3% hitting percentage on 34 kills and 27 attack errors.

Barnett led Jay County with 20 digs, followed by 17 from libero Lani Muhlenkamp. At the net, Hemmelgarn led with four blocks, followed by Kunkler with two.

In the first set, the Patriots jumped out to an 8-1 lead, that included three aces, and Winchester never fully recovered.

The teams traded points in the third until a run of four points on a Schmiesing kill, a Kunkler block, an ace from Fugiett and a Schwieterman kill, jumped JCHS ahead 14-6. It finished off the set with five straight points for the 13-point victory.

The final set was played the closest as there was only a three-point difference or less until a pair of kills by Kunkler and Hemmelgarn and a Schwieterman ace put the Patriots up 21-18 late.

Along with picking up a quality win over a team that returned its entire rotation that went on a run to the Class 2A semi-state tournament, the victory erased the bitter taste that the Delta loss left in the Patriots’ mouth.

“It really brings our confidence back,” Fugiett said. “Losing to Delta was not fun at all. We really wanted that.

“I think we came in here today being like, ‘They can beat us, but we’re going to fire back and we’re going to have confidence and we’re going to play as a team.’ And I think that’s what we did.”