District do over

When New Bremen defeated Fort Recovery in the regular-season finale, the result was a three-way tie for the Midwest Athletic Conference title.

It was a bitter pill for the Indians to swallow. Although they earned their first MAC crown since 1999, they could have earned the championship outright with a win in either of their final two conference games.

But the stakes will be even higher Friday night. When the teams meet again in the Division IV boys basketball district championship game at Wapakoneta, the loser goes home.

"We knew this was going to be a good team and we knew that this was a team that we were going to have to beat," said FRHS coach Brian Patch. "We've just got to be ready to play. Hopefully maybe we have a little bit of a chip on our shoulder."

The Tribe won't have any problem getting motivated.

In their Feb. 27 meeting with New Bremen, the Indians took a 47-42 lead when Greg Kahlig hit a couple of foul shots with just three minutes to play. However, the Cardinals finished on an 8-0 run to win the game, forging a tie for the MAC title with Fort Recovery, St. John's and New Bremen all posting 7-2 records.

The Indians' offense sputtered down the stretch as they went 0-for-5 with two turnovers after Kahlig's free throws.

"I think any time you have a chance to play again, a team that beat you the first time, I think you might want to get back at them or have a revenge factor," said Patch. "One thing I hope we learned is we definitely can play with them. "I think we controlled a lot of that game, up until the last two-and-a-half minutes or so. ... I thought defensively we did a pretty good job on them.

"As big as they are, we did a good job of rebounding the ball ... We got good looks and we can score on them."

New Bremen's size may be its biggest advantage.

While the Tribe has Kahlig at 6-feet-5-inches and two other starters who stand 6-foot-3, the Cardinals' roster includes four players at 6-foot-5 or taller.

Justin Eilerman, at 6-foot-7, leads the group as the top scorer (14.8 points per game) and rebounder (8.3) while shooting 56 percent from the field. Fellow seniors Caleb Williams and Clay Heitkamp stand 6-8 and 6-7 respectively and are both capable of scoring in double digits.

Spencer Rohrer is the team's No. 2 scorer while Andy Timmerman, whose free throws gave the Cardinals the lead in the regular-season game, averages 4.8 assists per game.

"(Eilerman) probably has a bigger wingspan than (6-foot-7)," said Patch. "We don't have anyone that big to guard him. He has a quick jump hook. ... He hits the glass. He's high energy.

"(Williams) is a 6-7 kid who can put it on the floor, can post up, can shoot it. They've been winning without him scoring a lot, and he's capable of going off and having big games."

Fort Recovery (19-3), of course, counters with two-time conference player of the year Kahlig, who is the school's all-time leading scorer and ranks third in MAC history at 1,655 points. But Kahlig has scored just 31 points combined in the Indians' two tournament wins thus far as others have lifted their games.

All five Tribe starters scored in double figures in the sectional championship round against New Knoxville, with seniors Craig Tobe, Cody Fiely and Michael Gaerke leading the team back from 14 points down with six minutes to go while Kahlig was held scoreless. And in Tuesday's district semifinal win over Ottoville, Tobe poured in 15 of the first 18 FRHS points on the way to a game-high 22 while freshman Wade Gelhaus chipped in 10 points.

"I think the thing that really helps us (from the New Knoxville comeback) is they were basically saying, 'we aren't going to let Greg beat us. Somebody else has to beat us,'" said Patch. "And our guys did that."

The Tribe is no stranger to rematches.

It avenged a holiday tournament loss against Coldwater in a MAC play. And against revenge-minded New Knoxville - the Rangers had a nine-point second-half lead over the Indians before falling by two in the regular season - they came back from the brink of elimination.

This latest rematch shouldn't come as a surprise to any MAC fans.

This will be the fifth times in seven seasons in which MAC rivals have met in the championship game at Wapakoneta, with only Ada breaking the streak in 2006 and '09. It will be the third trip to a district title game under Patch as the Tribe lost to league rivals Minster in 2005 and eventual state champion New Knoxville in '08.

Fort Recovery, which has won four sectional crowns in the last six years, will be looking for just its second district title since the 1971 state championship season. The only district championship since then came in 1999, when the Indians finished as state runners-up.

"Our four seniors are great kids," said Patch. "They want to leave a mark on Fort Recovery basketball history. ... They want to leave their name everywhere around here."

Patch and his players have talked about Chuck Bihn, Scott Dilworth, Chris Guggenbiller, Clark May and Ross Wendel, the leaders of the team that made the 1999 state title game. Those names, and those of the 1969 state finalists and 1971 state champions still resonate with Indian fans.

"That can be us. We can be that team," said Patch. "We want to be that team that people will talk about in the future. This is another step along the way of that opportunity to happen."[[In-content Ad]]