FR awakens for team W over Tigers (12/30/05)

ANSONIA, Ohio — After their long winter’s nap, the Indians were ready for action.

Fort Recovery, which had 18 days between games, opened with an 11-0 run when it finally returned to the court Thursday night. That advantage disappeared early in the second quarter, but the Tribe reclaimed the lead and never trailed in the second half of a 53-45 victory over the Ansonia Tigers.

“We thought we needed to have a big start and jump on them early, and we did that,” said FRHS coach Brian Patch, calling the game a great “team” win. “That was the start we had to have. That allowed us to ease into things a little more versus being down ...”

Thanks to the postponement of its scheduled Dec. 16 game against Coldwater because of the school’s run to the state title in football, and the Christmas holiday, Fort Recovery had not played since visiting Ti-Village Dec. 10. In the same span the Tigers had four games, matching the total the Indians have played all season.

After an opening half which included extreme hot and cold stretches for each team, Fort Recovery (3-2) held a 20-15 halftime lead. The visitors gradually opened that advantage in the second half, moving ahead 36-25 on back-to-back hoops from Ryan Staugler.

They remained up by 10 after three periods and suffocated Ansonia defensively in the final minutes.

Holding a 49-41 lead with 3:15 to go, the Tigers (3-5) did not score for the next three minutes. Staugler added a hoop and Travis VanSkyock hit a pair of free throws before Ansonia scored twice in the last 11 seconds for the final margin.

The offensive struggles for the Tigers — they opened 0-for-4 with six turnovers in the first six minutes in addition to their scoreless stretch at the end — contrasted an excellent shooting night by Fort Recovery. The Indians shot 22-of-40 (55 percent) from the field, which helped them overcome 21 turnovers.

“They were trying to trap, so we tried to spread the floor on them and get to the middle and look to attack them from there,” said Patch. “Our kids did a good job of doing that once we broke the pressure and didn’t turn it over.”

Clint Tobe (6-of-10 field goals) scored half of his game-high 14 points in a fourth quarter which also saw him come up with three big steals.

VanSkyock (5-of-9), who had three personal fouls in the first half, went without a foul in the second half to keep himself on the floor as he finished with 13 points and six rebounds.

Staugler (4-of-6) came up big with 10 points and seven rebounds, and ran the point for much of the second half.

“We’ve been saying all along it can’t be one or two guys doing it. You can have one or two guys step up, but it’s got to be our team,” said Patch, who also got seven rebounds from Luke Bihn. “We’ve been trying to preach that to the kids ...

“Luke Bihn came in and gave us some good minutes from the rebounding and defensive standpoint. Ryan Staugler stepped up and hit some big shots for us and handled the ball when we needed him to. Clint Tobe came out of his shell a little bit and showed some signs of what he can do for us.”

Patch’s squad will go from excessive rest to none at all when it visits Lincolnview tonight at 6:30 p.m.

After their team fell behind 11-0 early on, Brad McEldowney and Niles Brown combined to score the next 12 points to push Ansonia ahead by one at the 5:33 mark of the second quarter. But the Tigers struggled to find offensive consistency for most of the game.

McEldowney finished with 12 points, eight of which came in the first half, on 5-of-13 shooting. He also had eight rebounds.

Brown never scored again after hitting for five points during the 12-0 run, and Logan Beam was the only player to join McEldowney in double figures as he scored 10 points.

“We didn’t come out an compete the way we should have,” said Ansonia coach Chad Cramer, whose team hit just two of its 12 3-point tries and had 19 turnovers. “Defensively we weren’t playing as hard as we should have, and we made some bad decisions offensively.

“In the first half (McEldowney) was the only one really attacking. I wanted to look to him. In the second half we had some other kids step up and make some shots for us, but for us to be successful at all it’s got to be 32 minutes.”

Junior varsity

Fort Recovery dominated the first half and held on for a 40-34 victory over the Tigers.

The Indians allowed just two points in the first quarter and four in the second, holding Ansonia to 21 percent shooting in building a 26-6 halftime lead. The big lead dwindled to six points lead in the fourth quarter, but the Tigers’ 3-point tries in the final minutes all were off the mark.

Curt Heitkamp and Wes Kahlig led Fort Recovery with nine and eight points respectively as nine different players scored. Heitkamp and Ross Overman each had three assists. Tyler Jutte grabbed six rebounds, and Eric Lamm had four rebounds and three steals.

Chance Cox finished 6-of-9 from the field and scored a game-high 14 points for Ansonia. Michael Amspaugh added 10 points.[[In-content Ad]]