Standing ovation

By COLIN FOSTER
cfoster@dailystandard.com

MINSTER - Minster's Ivy Wolf was the star of the show Thursday night against Fort Recovery.

It was Courtney Prenger who got the standing ovation, though.

The Wildcats' Prenger surpassed the 1,000-point mark for her career and Wolf netted a game-high 21 points as they improved to 11-0 overall and 3-0 in Midwest Athletic Conference play with a 54-24 win in Minster.

The moment for Prenger came at the 1:33 mark of the second quarter when she knocked down a jumper inside the paint to give her 1,001 points. The Xavier-bound senior ranks second in Minster history behind Lauren Shenk. Prenger finished with six points and five rebounds.

"A couple weeks back, coach told me I was around 50 (points away)," Prenger said. "I scored some high points at Bath, so I knew I was close. But it's crazy to think that I'm at 1,000 already."

Minster opened the game with a 12-3 run in the first 2 1/2 minutes. Wolf finished the quarter with 11 points while Jessica Falk added seven. Val Muhlenkamp had three 3-pointers for the Indians. The teams combined to hit the first nine shots of the game. Eight 3s were made in the stanza, but Minster led 25-14 at the end.

"We don't always shoot that well, but we have been bringing that type of energy early in the game" Minster coach Mike Wiss said. "Our guards have the ability to cause a little distress to the other point guards, and our post defense tonight on their two bigs was really, really good.

"I'm just really happy with our energy early," Wiss added. "You combine that with Ivy shooting the ball really well and the subs off our bench providing great support."

The Wildcats built a 37-16 advantage by halftime and led 45-21 after three quarters.

Fort Recovery made 5 of 8 shots in the first quarter but only hit three over the final frames. The Indians also committed 20 turnovers as they fell to 4-5 overall and 1-2 in MAC play.

"They're really good," Fort Recovery coach Brian Patch said. "Their pressure just killed us the whole game. We couldn't get into anything, couldn't run anything on offense and struggled to get the ball inside to Olivia (Patch). We did have some shots early on that we hit, but for the most part, we struggled to get into our offense and they just took everything away from us.

"You watch them on film, they've beat a lot of good teams by a lot," Patch added. "I don't know if they've had a game within 25. I watched them play Bellevue the other day, who is really good, and they just manhandled them. That was with Ivy not playing very well. You talk about her not playing well in that game. Today, she came out and said 'I'm going to make up for that.' She came out and basically dominated this game."

Wolf went 8 of 16 from the field for her 21 points. Falk finished with nine points for Minster. Courtney Ernst added eight.

Muhlenkamp had 11 points and nine rebounds to lead the Indians.

Both teams return to action on Saturday. Minster travels to Lincolnview and Fort Recovery hosts Liberty-Benton.