Indians pick up win over scrappy Rangers

FORT RECOVERY - Despite a never-say-die effort from New Knoxville, including two runs in the second half to cut the deficit, Fort Recovery held on for a 65-51 win in the Division IV boys basketball sectional opener at Fort Site Fieldhouse.

With the victory, Fort Recovery moves on to play St. Henry in the Division IV sectional final at Redskin Gymnasium on Friday at 7 p.m.

"We got a little stagnant there, went through a few periods where they were changing up their defense a little bit," Fort Recovery coach Jim Melton said. "Our guys just started passing, I was telling them that we want to score, to do what we want. But I was proud of the guys for finishing the game."

Trailing by 16 at the half, the Rangers tightened up on defense and started whittling it down, with a 3-pointer from Patrick Covert making it an eight-point game with 2:34 left.

But as the quarter wound down, Fort Recovery found another burst. This time the Indians got three buckets in the final 1:11 to get the lead back into double-digits for good.

"We went to kind of a quote-unquote junk defense, an inverted triangle-and-two, just to take away their two best shooters, and there just happened to be the one misstep where we didn't rotate and bump, and I believe it was (Cale) Rammel hit a three in the corner," New Knoxville coach Cole Fischbach said. "Then the very next possession down, after we have an empty possession, we leave Clay Schmitz wide open, and a guy who's been around three years at the varsity level, you just can't do that, no matter who it is."

Another Fort Recovery run early in the fourth made it a 20-point lead, and with the Indians draining the clock, New Knoxville started fouling with over four minutes left.

The strategy worked, for a while. The Indians missed their first two and-ones and the Rangers started to hit one clutch three after another, cutting the deficit to 10 with two minutes to play. But the luck fizzled out there, with the next two threes bouncing out and Fort Recovery honing in at the line to close out the win.

"First time, I think, all year we were able to take a shot in the mouth and really come back, not just bend over and let it keep happening," Fischbach said. "We were able to get a few shots back, execute down the stretch. I know it was a weird strategy there in the fourth quarter, but we were able to chip away at it."

The Indians initially jumped out to the big lead on a 16-3 first half run. After Sammy Anspach drained a trey with 6:20 left in the first to cut the lead to 6-5 and Cale Rammel answered with a three for the Indians, both teams fell into a three-minute scoring drought. New Knoxville's defense blinked first, and Fort Recovery added eight points over the final two minutes, including six from Brian Bihn, to take a nine-point lead into the break.

That lead stayed for much of the second quarter, but as halftime drew near the Indians broke through again. Leading by nine with three minutes to go, Fort Recovery scored seven straight points to go up 34-18.

But New Knoxville didn't go away, even as time ran out on a season that saw them finish ninth in the MAC and win just five games.

"I told the guys, 'Thank you for giving me every ounce of effort you had,' " Fischbach said. "They had their chance to quit and back down, like we have in multiple games, and they did not do that tonight."

Bihn put up a game-high 22 points and pulled down five rebounds, as the Rangers had no answer for him down in the post. The Indians also saw Owen Jutte, their leading scorer back on the floor after missing several games with a foot injury. Jutte hit a three in the second quarter and collected four rebounds.

"He's 75, 85%, somewhere in there," Melton said. "He'll be ready Friday night."