Big third powers FR (01/22/07)

FORT RECOVERY - A tweak here and there was all Fort Recovery needed.

The Indians, the third-ranked girls basketball team in Division IV, made a few halftime adjustments and proceeded to turn a fairly competitive game into yet another blowout. They scored as many points in the third quarter as in the entire first half on the way to a 72-49 victory.

The only deficit for Fort Recovery (14-2) came at 2-0, but it was still up by just two after the opening quarter and 28-20 at halftime. Then it opened the second half with a 14-2 run to crush any hopes Arcanum (10-6) may have had of an upset.

"We haven't had anybody sag that far off us in a 2-3 zone all year," said Tribe coach Jeff Roessner. "They just packed it in. ... So we got a little bit antsy shooting the threes early ... but once we started to rotate our post players inside we got some good high-low looks in there and it turned around for us."

The Indians needed just 2:30 to score the opening 10 points in the second half, getting a 3-pointer from Sara Fortkamp and a couple of fast-break buckets by Vicki Roessner during the run. Abby Niekamp scored all of her four points during the spurt, and the Tribe kept rolling to a 56-32 lead after three quarters.

Fortkamp, Roessner and Stein each hit a pair of 3-pointers over Arcanum's zone defense, and Joanna Snyder and Lauren Wenning added one apiece.

"They just killed us on the threes," said Arcanum coach Randy O'Dell after the Indians hit as many 3-pointers (eight) as his team attempted. "They've got so many weapons you just can't cover everybody. But we played about as well as we could play. I'm proud of the girls."

Snyder led a group of four Fort Recovery players in double figures as she went 6-of-10 from the field and added a free throw for 14 points off the bench. Fortkamp scored six consecutive Indian points during the first quarter and finished with 12. Roessner added 11 points, and Holly Stein scored 10.

Stein was close to tallying another double-double as she led the Tribe with eight rebounds. Fortkamp grabbed six boards, Niekamp dished out five assists and Roessner followed with four assists.

After scoring just 72 points in back-to-back losses to New Knoxville and Green, the Tribe has racked up 159 in its last two victories.

"They shot the ball pretty well at times," said Roessner, also noting the eight-point effort from Tiff Gaerke. "Some of the jumpers I saw from Tiff at the high post were really, really encouraging for me. ... For me, those might have been the biggest ones. I thought our high-low and our interior action was pretty solid in that third quarter."

Despite the loss, O'Dell was happy with his team's play.

"We need a few of these games," he said. "They were fired up. Against Covington Thursday we just didn't have it. If we would have played like this Thursday, we would have run them off the floor. ... The girls had to step it up and they stepped it up.

"(Fort Recovery) is a great team. It's a privilege to play a team like this."

Ashley Falknor paced Arcanum with 19 points, nine rebounds and three blocks. Jackie Elb scored 14 points, and Betsy Printz added 10 points and six rebounds.

Junior varsity

The Indians shut out Arcanum in the first half as they rolled to a 34-14 victory.

Chelsey Leuthold had 15 points and four rebounds to lead Fort Recovery, which held the Trojans to 0-of-8 shooting in the first half and forced 30 turnovers for the game. Josie Guggenbiller added five points, four steals and a block, Rachel Tobe had four steals and Kelsey Brockman grabbed four rebounds.

Bridget Stillwagon's five points were tops for Arcanum.[[In-content Ad]]