Coldwater tops Tribe (01/11/06)

COLDWATER, Ohio — Fort Recovery was in yet another tight game in the fourth quarter, but came away with a third consecutive defeat.

Trailing by seven with just 1:09 to play the Indians pulled to within three on a Travis VanSkyock 3-pointer with 34 seconds left, but could not complete the comeback in a 46-40 loss to the Coldwater Cavaliers.

Despite the defeat Fort Recovery coach Brian Patch, whose team gave up sizable fourth-quarter leads against Lincolnview and Minster in its previous two games, said he is seeing progress from his young team.

“I think we’re improving in some of the areas,” he said. “I think we’re handling the ball a little bit better. There are still just some things that as young players they’re continuing to make the same mistakes.”

The Indians (3-5) had a 29-26 lead early in the final quarter, but Coldwater finally found some offense as it went on an 11-2 run for a six-point lead. The home team pushed the advantage to 41-34 when Mike Lefeld tossed in a couple of free throws with 1:09 remaining.

Clint Tobe and Travis VanSkyock each hit 3-pointers for Fort Recovery — VanSkyock’s came after a great defensive play as freshman Toby Metzger drew a charging call — to get back to within three at 43-40.

However, the Indians never got another good look at the basket — VanSkyock had one of his 3-point tries blocked — and Brady Geier hit 3-of-4 from the foul line for the final margin.

Coldwater, which scored 22 fourth-quarter points after having just 24 in the first three combined, did much of its damage on the glass where it out-rebounded the Indians 33-21 and had eight offensive rebounds in the second half.

“It came down to two things,” said Patch. “One, they hit free throws. And two, we couldn’t box anybody out. They just went and got rebounds. Not only did they just get them, they got them at the right time and then they put them back and scored.

“Coming in we thought we could do a pretty good job of guarding them. The thing we knew we had to limit was their second-chance points.”

The work on the glass helped the Cavaliers win on a slow scoring night for both teams.

The offense was dreadful in the first half as Fort Recovery, which shot 6-of-21 for 29 percent, led 14-12 at the intermission. Coldwater went 5-of-19 over the first 16 minutes for 26 percent. The game was tied at 24 after three quarters.

“We had to stick with it,” said Cavalier coach Mike Kanney, whose team hit 14-of-20 foul shots compared to just 2-of-5 for the Indians. “We just told them, ‘You have to believe your shots are going to go in, and you have to go get it if it doesn’t.’ I think that helped.”

Aaron Evers, Brady Geier and Brian Brunswick each scored eight points to lead a balanced scoring effort for Coldwater. Gaston Pleiman and Ryan Geier added six points apiece.

Tobe and VanSkyock accounted for most of the Tribe offense, finishing with 12 and 14 points respectively. Three of Tobe’s four 3-pointers came in the second half.

Fort Recovery’s junior varsity team rallied from a double-digit deficit, but also fell to the Cavaliers 42-40. Wes Kahlig had nine points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals. Curt Heitkamp scored seven points.[[In-content Ad]]