Defensive struggle

MINSTER - After holding its own for the first three quarters of a defensive slugfest on Tuesday, Minster came apart in the final three minutes.

Fort Recovery took a slim lead early in the fourth off a pair of Wildcats turnovers, Owen Jutte scored five straight points to stretch the lead to six, and from there the Indians hit enough free throws to earn a 42-37 Midwest Athletic Conference win in a boys basketball game at Wildcat Gymnasium.

"It was pretty ugly from our perspective, but you know any time you go on the road in the MAC, it's going to be physical," Fort Recovery coach Jim Melton said. "We knew that coming in."

In a game that saw eight lead changes and five ties through the first three quarters, Fort Recovery (14-7, 4-4 MAC) fell behind 28-26 with 7:21 remaining after Zach Fortman hit a pair of free throws, and the Indians promptly turned the ball over when Cale Rammel stepped out of bounds along the baseline. But Minster (5-17, 1-8 MAC) returned the favor when Austin Wellman was called for a charge, and Caleb Evers evened it up with 6:17 to play.

As the Indians closed in on a trap, Rammel snagged an ill-advised Wildcats pass that hit him in the hands and sprinted down the court for a layup to put Fort Recovery up 30-28. Jutte blocked a shot and grabbed the rebound, and Logan Homan drew a shooting foul, Minster's seventh of the half. Homan hit the two free throws to give the Indians a four-point lead with 5:08 left.

"Our ability to put the ball in the basket right now is a struggle," Minster coach Michael McClurg said. "I think we're guarding well, we're playing really good D. We were tied up, but the margin for error was pretty low. So when you give up a couple turnovers like that, they kind of made a swing."

Wildcats freshman James Niemeyer hit a trey with a hand in his face to cut the lead to one, and Jutte responded emphatically, starting with a jumper with 3:12 left. After Devan Wuebker missed a three on the other end and Rammel got the rebound, Homan missed a point-blank shot and Jutte outmuscled a Wildcats defender to grab the offensive board.

Jutte dribbled down the baseline and fired a turnaround shot from the left corner, and it rattled down for a three that put Fort Recovery up 37-31 with 2:45 left.

It was the Indians' largest lead of the game to that point and the largest lead either team had held since Minster went up 8-2 with 2:43 left in the first.

"That gave us all a spark," Melton said of Jutte's three. "The guys kind of fed off that, and then we were able to do what we wanted to do.

"When we went to that spread look in the first half, they were able to hold it. That's what I kept telling the guys, we've got to get to three possessions. We get to three possessions, they can't hold it, they've got to play."

Niemeyer got open for a corner three on the other end, but the Wildcats were reduced to playing catch-up the rest of the way. A foul on Fortman along the sideline sent Rammel to the charity stripe, where he hit both ends of a one-and-one to make it 39-34.

Fort Recovery, which went between a 2-3 zone and a man defense in the first half, was able to switch to a 3-2 zone down the stretch, and Minster couldn't generate enough offense without injured senior Johnny Nixon to break through.

"We didn't want to show too much in the first half," Melton said. "We were trying to get to the second half to bring some of that stuff out. We had one or two possessions from the baseline out to change it up a little bit, but we were trying to save some of what we wanted to do."

With the Wildcats trailing by five, Niemeyer missed a three, Rammel grabbed the rebound and drew another foul, then hit both free throws to finally make it a three-possession game at 41-34 with 1:25 to play.

The Indians shot 1-of-4 from the line in the final minute, but had enough of a margin by then to hold on, and the Wildcats missed five threes with the clock running out. Austin Wellman hit a trey with 3.7 seconds left, but at that point it was too little, too late.

"When they're playing the 3-2, you've got to get the ball in the middle and hit corners out of that, and we weren't able to do that," McClurg said. "That's kind of how it played out. It slows you down. Now it takes you 30 seconds to get a shot versus getting something quick."

Minster led 18-17 coming out of halftime, and after Rammel put the Indians up a minute into the third, Wildcats point guard Brogan Stephey took the ball into the frontcourt and dribbled out as much clock as he could before Fort Recovery got more aggressive on defense.

"I was good with a close game," McClurg said. "They're very long and they're athletic, so when they start running that 3-2, it's hard to get passes. But if they were going to sit in it, I was good with a tie game going into 30 seconds left."

Rammel finished with a game-high 15 points, while Evers added 10. Niemeyer led the Wildcats with 10 points.

Minster wrapped up its regular season with the loss in the rescheduled MAC game and looks ahead to the start of the Division IV tournament, where the Wildcats will take on Ridgemont in the opener of the Wapakoneta sectionals on Feb. 23. Fort Recovery has one game remaining, traveling to MAC leader New Bremen on Friday before taking on Parkway on Feb. 23 in the Division IV tournament opener.