'Cats end Fort's season (03/05/05)

WAPAKONETA, Ohio — Even a little letdown can mean a lot in the post-season.

For the Fort Recovery Indians, that letdown came late in the third and early in the fourth quarters.

And it was enough to end the Indians’ season.

Although Fort Recovery rallied down the stretch against Minster in the finals of the district tournament at Wapakoneta Friday night, it never made it all the way back as Minster advanced to the regional with a 54-48 victory.

It was the second season-ending defeat to Minster for a Fort Recovery basketball team this season. The girls also lost to Minster (in the sectional championship game), also by six points.

The Minster boys (19-4), who will play in the regional semifinals Tuesday night at the University of Dayton’s Hara Arena, outscored Fort Recovery 17-6 in the third quarter Friday, turning a five-point halftime deficit (23-18) into a 35-29 advantage heading into the fourth quarter.

Minster built its lead to nine points early in the fourth before the Indians chipped away, twice trimming the deficit to two points with less than two minutes to play on free throws by Sean Kahlig.

But the Wildcats got two free throws from Zac Boeke and four in a row from Andy Beckman with less than 30 seconds to play to seal the win.

Free throws were crucial all night for the Wildcats, who connected on 24-of-31 for the game. Minster won despite hitting just 30 percent (13-for-44) of its shots from the field.

Fort Recovery coach Brian Patch, who said this week that handling Minster’s full-court pressure defense would be a key, thought that defense wore his team down — especially during the crucial late third, early fourth quarter run.

“When you’ve gotta handle that kind of pressure that they can put on you all game, that’s going to wear on you a little bit,” Patch said. “Once we got in the tournament we kind of shortened our bench down ... up until this point, I don’t think it’s been a factor for us, but when you’re being pressed all game long I think maybe it wore our guys down a little bit.”

Minster’s Boeke paced three Wildcats in double-figures with 16 points. Dane Sommer added 15 and Beckman 10.

Fort Recovery’s Sean Kahlig scored a team-best 14 points, including 8-for-8 from the free-throw line. Greg Faller added 10 points for the Indians, while both Dusty Tobe and Clint Tobe scored eight.

With both teams playing physical defense and slapping at the ball at every opportunity, neither Minster nor Fort Recovery was able to get into much of an offensive rhythm.

The Indians were 16-for-45 from the field, including 5-of-13 (38 percent) from 3-point range.

Patch noted the differential in free-throw attempts (Minster’s 31 to Fort’s 12).

“I’m disappointed we didn’t get to the free-throw line (more often). Obviously we’re looking to attack the glass and get it inside ... we didn’t get to the line when we thought we should have,” Patch said.

Fort Recovery, which lost by seven points in an early regular season match-up at Minster, did a solid job rebounding against the Wildcats, grabbing a 29-20 advantage on the boards.

Dusty Tobe had a game-high eight rebounds. Travis VanSkyock, who led the Indians with 23 points in a district semifinal victory Tuesday, pulled down seven rebounds Friday night, while Kahlig had six.

This week marked the first district action for the Indians since they played in the state championship game at the end of the 1998-99 season.[[In-content Ad]]