Cavs hold off Fort for title

COLDWATER, Ohio - It's a safe bet that few of the fans who packed The Palace here Wednesday night expected anything less than a battle to the end between two rivals.

They weren't disappointed.

Coldwater, with a third quarter surge it carried into the fourth period, held off a furious charge by Fort Recovery to claim the championship in the Coldwater Classic by a 40-39 margin.

Fort's Greg Kahlig, who scored a game-high 19 points and was named co-tournament MPV along with Coldwater's Eric Lefeld, had a chance to tie the game with 16 seconds left but missed.

Coldwater's Keith Wenning hit the second of two free throws with four seconds remaining.

That put the Cavaliers up 40-36, making Kahlig's 3-pointer just before the buzzer meaningless.

Fort Recovery, 6-1 on the second, led by as many as six points in the first half of a defensive struggle, maintained a 22-18 advantage at the half and built that lead back up to six (30-24) on a pair of Kahlig free throws with 1:55 left in the third period.

But Fort wouldn't score again for nearly eight minutes on the clock, and the Cavaliers went on a 10-0 run over that span to take a 36-30 lead.

Fort's Craig Tobe broke the dry spell with a 3-pointer at 1:57 of the fourth to trim the deficit to 36-33, and hit another with 30 seconds left to cut the margin to two, 38-36. Coldwater hit 2-of-4 free throws down the stretch to seal the win.

Tobe, who scored nine points Wednesday, joined Kahlig on the all-tournament team.

Kahlig, who is No. 3 on the Fort boys basketball all-time scoring list, now has 1,280 career points.

Lefeld led Coldwater with 15 points in Wednesday's championship game.

Also named to the all-tournament team were Logan Bonifas (Delphos Jefferson) and Tim Brunet (Coldwater).

Fort Recovery's junior varsity team won the consolation game of the JV tournament by a 48-46 margin over Delphos Jefferson.

Fort's Jared Kahlig had 16 points, while Shane Brunswick had 12, Trent Kaiser 11 and Ryan Link 9.[[In-content Ad]]