Flyers finish Fort's season (03/03/04)

COLDWATER, Ohio — The Indians trailed by one against Marion Local with five minutes to go in the first half. But that was as close as they would get to the team they lost by one to during the regular season.

The Fort Recovery boys basketball team never led Tuesday’s sectional semifinal game at Coldwater, consistently fading away over the final 20 minutes in a 64-46 loss to the Marion Local Flyers.

Marion Local (12-9) advances to one of Friday night’s sectional championship game against New Bremen. Knew Knoxville topped Waynesfield-Goshen 57-36 in Tuesday’s other semifinal contest, and will play Minster in the other title contest.

After cutting the Flyers lead to 24-23 three minutes into the second quarter Fort Recovery — which lost the regular-season meeting 41-40 — allowed them to pull away for good.

Cory Luebke hit one bucket and then a pair of free throws to start a 10-1 Marion Local run to end the half. Russell Moeller finished the run with a bucket on an assist from Curtis Moeller for a 34-24 halftime lead.

The Tribe (5-16) scored the first three points of the second half to cut the deficit to seven points, but Marion Local answered with a 7-0 run. Fort Recovery was never able to get within single digits again.

Dusty Tobe paced the Indians with 14 points, but they disappeared in the second half thanks to a 31-percent effort from the field. They made just 8-of-26 field goal attempts after the intermission on the way to 39 percent shooting for the game.

Joining Tobe in double figures was Greg Faller with 10 points. Travis VanSkyock had nine points and seven rebounds, and Sean Kahlig added eight points and eight boards.

Tobe finished with five assists.

The Flyers only managed to hit 44 percent of their field goals, but Ryan Winner and Russel Moeller were hot in leading them in scoring. Winner went 7-of-11 from the field with a couple of 3-pointers for a game-high 18 points. Moeller was 4-of-6 overall and 2-for-2 from beyond the arc for 14 points.

Moeller also had a team-high seven rebounds. He led a group of five players with four or more rebounds as Marion Local took a 34-27 advantage on the glass.

Cory Luebke also reached double figures with 13 points.

Adam Kremer finished with eight points, five rebounds and four steals.[[In-content Ad]]