Fort clobbers Tigers

FORT RECOVERY - The Indians had a little lull in the second half Friday.

However, their lead was 23 points prior to the rough patch. And after Versailles closed the gap to 13 in the fourth quarter, Greg Kahlig made sure the visiting Tigers had no illusions of taking their comeback any further.

Kahlig scored 13 of his game-high 35 points in the fourth quarter as the Fort Recovery High School boys basketball team handed Versailles a 64-39 defeat.

"We started off playing pretty well," said FRHS coach Brian Patch, whose team led by 10 early in the second quarter and pushed its advantage to 43-20 with a minute to go in the third. "I think we got content thinking the game was going to be over ... But we were able to collectively regroup ourselves and come back and finish strong."

After building their big lead, the Indians (7-1, 2-0 Midwest Athletic Conference) gave up a 13-4 run leading to a timeout by Patch with 5:15 to go. That was all the wake-up call his players needed.

Kahlig immediately recorded a three-point play out of the timeout, and Cody Fiely followed with a hoop. Kahlig scored to make it 54-33, buried a 3-pointer, assisted on a basket by Craig Tobe and then hit a step-back triple on the left baseline.

A score from freshman Wade Gelhaus completed a 17-2 run following the timeout and gave the Indians a 29-point advantage.

"When things were going rough, (Kahlig) just knows when to step up and take the game over. That's a sign of what good players do," said Patch. "By no means is he a selfish player. He's always looking for his teammates. ... It's just nice when you know you've got a kid who can say, 'OK, I'm taking the game over and we're going to win this game and we're going to do it the right way.'"

Kahlig hit all of his 11 2-point field goal attempts and buried four 3-pointers.

With his game-high scoring total, the senior became just the third player in school history to surpass the 1,300-point plateau. His 1,315 points are 48 behind Kevin Dilworth for second on the FRHS all-time list and 103 off of the school record set by Ken Heiby in 1969.

Kahlig also had a game-high five assists to go along with two blocks. He single-handedly out-rebounded Versailles in the first half - 9-7 - on the way to a goal-high total of 15 boards.

And he combined with classmate Michael Gaerke for the most exciting play of the night.

With Gaerke dribbling the ball just to the right of the top of the key, Kahlig looped around the left side of the court. He attacked the basket from the left baseline, and Gaerke found him with an alley-oop pass for a dunk that ignited the home crowd.

"We've worked on it every now and then in practice, and usually we throw it and it hits the top of the backboard or five feet to the left," said Patch, chuckling. "Some of our former players were in this week and they were (telling) the kids they could kick the ball better than what they could throw it. But we thought, let's just see if we can run it, and we ran it, and it worked out. That was a great momentum swing for us because we went on a little run after that."

Starting with the dunk, the Indians went on an 11-4 run to end the first half. They proceeded to open the second half with a 13-2 run and never let their lead dip to single digits.

Gelhaus and Tobe followed up Kahlig's scoring effort with eight points apiece. Tobe and Jason Pottkotter each grabbed five rebounds.

While Kahlig led a potent Fort Recovery offense - the home team shot 65 percent from the field, including 5-of-9 from 3-point range - the Tribe was impressive on defense as well. It limited the Tigers to just 32 percent shooting (14-of-44) and out-rebounded them 33-18.

FRHS also had six blocked shots, with Gelhaus and Kahlig contributing two apiece.

"I think we're figuring out that defense is going to win us games," said Patch. "The kids are buying into it. ... Tonight I thought was a great defensive effort."

Derek Langenkamp paced Versailles (4-4, 0-3 MAC) with 12 points on 3-of-12 shooting. Zach Barlage added seven points and five rebounds.

Junior varsity

The Indians managed just one fourth-quarter points as they dropped to 1-5 with a 45-31 loss to Versailles.

Shane Brunswick scored 14 points to lead Fort Recovery, which shot just 32 percent from the field. Ryan Link added seven points, Trent Kaiser and Aaron Wilker grabbed five rebounds apiece and Jared Kahlig dished out four assists.

Ethan Bruns led the Tigers with 14 points and seven rebounds as they grabbed a 26-18 advantage n the glass. Jordan Luthman joined him in double figures with 10 points.[[In-content Ad]]