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MUNCIE — The Patriots have suffered some disappointments recently.

First they dropped the Allen County Athletic Conference tournament championship to a Bluffton team they previously beat by 18 points in the regular season.

The Patriots got walloped by the eighth-ranked team in Class 4A in their next game.

But after the two losses, the Patriots came together to pull off a win against a strong sectional opponent.

A strong second half helped the Jay County High School girls basketball team pick off the Delta Eagles 55-51 to escape Muncie with a victory on Thursday.

The Eagles (15-6) got the better of Jay County in 2024-25. Delta beat the Patriots (13-7) by 31 points in the regular season before ending their year with a 21-point defeat in the sectional semifinal.

“I just felt like our kids gritted it out,” said JCHS coach Sherri McIntire. “It was not a real pretty first half, we did not get off to a good start. We’re down five at half to a team that beat us last year twice and I feel like our kids just kept plugging away.

“We played much better in the second half. … I’m just super proud of the kids. They beat a nice ball club tonight. There were a couple of times where we were down seven and just kept plugging away and showed a lot of grit.

“That sectional is going to be a competitive sectional and I hope our kids, after tonight, believe that we’re one of those teams that can win it.”

The Patriots had to battle the first 16 minutes just to be down 26-21 at halftime. Jay County got the drop on the Eagles coming out of the locker room.

On the first possession of the third quarter, Raylah Newton drilled a 3-point shot on a short drive and kick from Karsyn Schwieterman. Jillian Barr, who led Delta with 22 points, got the Eagles back up by four points on a post up move, but the Patriots responded with a 10-0 run.

The run started with an Elizabeth Brunswick hoop. She was isolated on the right side of the floor, drove on Elizabeth Bamidele and hit a spin move to get right in front of the rim.

Karsyn Schwieterman, who led JCHS with 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting, scored next by beating Jacquelyn Linn off the bounce. Brunswick scored her second bucket on an offensive rebound and came back down the floor, got Bamidele in the air on a pump fake and went up-and-under for a bunny.

The run capped off with Karsyn Schwieterman beating Linn on another drive.

“With (Addison) Barnes on Hallie (Schwieterman), that opened up some room for us,” Brunswick said. “I think they were a little skeptical that Karsyn would drive the ball so well. So when I got the ball, I knew I had to take it to the rim and just take it up with power to see what I could do with it.”

Both teams made small runs, but Jay County held a 10-point advantage with 2:37 remaining.

Delta had one more run left in it. Griffyn Knight hit her first shot of the day on a floater from 10 feet away. Addison Barnes then broke her dry spell with a banked-in 3-pointer and hit a pair of free throws to cut the deficit to 49-46.

Jay County’s freshman center stepped up down the stretch.

Charlee Peters first scored after an Eagle basket as Hallie Schwieterman raced down the court before getting the ball to her for a layup.

On the other end of the floor, Barnes hit another triple to pull Delta within two points.

The Patriots killed 15 seconds before Newton took a three that came up short. Peters came up big to rip down the offensive rebound, keeping the possession alive and allowing McIntire to call a timeout with 27.3 seconds left.

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Jay County girls basketball at Delta (1/22/2026)

“I think rebounding is one of my biggest specialties and that’s what I’m really good at,” said Peters, who grabbed five boards off the bench. “That ball, the other girl wasn’t going to grab it, so I thought, ‘I’m getting this ball whether I have to get on the ground or not.’ I knew we needed another possession.”

Out of the timeout, Newton went to the charity stripe to knock down a pair of free throws to make it a two-possession game. JCHS got two more points on free throws by Hallie Schwieterman — she went 9-for-9 from the line en route to 15 points — and Barr made one last shot for DHS.

Delta made multiple runs throughout the game, but never found a way to put the Patriots to bed. The Eagles opened the game on a 7-0 run, scored 10 straight in the second period after trailing for the first time in the game, had a 7-2 run late in the third to pull within a point of the Patriots and had the late push fueled by Barnes.

“Jay County is a great team and I told (my kids) they were a good team and you need to come ready to play,” said DHS coach Ty’Ronda Benning. “So it’s nothing against them, my team was just super lackadaisical and they weren’t, as far as intensity goes, there for the entire four quarters. They had good sparks but they need to put the whole entire game together.”

Jay County is now 3-1 against sectional opponents. It beat Delta, New Castle and Yorktown, fell to Hamilton Heights and won’t see Connersville, which has the highest Sagrin rating in the group, during the regular season. With the sectional bracket being released on Sunday, McIntire is hoping her team will have confidence with whoever it draws.