Green leaves purple feeling blue (01/16/07)

BERLIN, Ohio - When reduced to the basics, basketball is simple. If the ball doesn't go in the basket, you lose.

Division IV No. 1 Fort Recovery had that problem at the beginning of the fourth quarter Monday, going more than four minutes without scoring a point. The Green Bulldogs took advantage with an 11-0 run for a 12-point lead as they topped the Indians 49-44 at the Classic in the Country hosted by Berlin Hiland.

Green senior Kelly Smerekanich said nothing special happened in the huddle during the break between the third and fourth quarters. But she and her teammates remembered what was predicted in the program for the 33-team, 20-game, three-day event: "Yo Kemosabe, Fort Recovery scalps the Green Bulldogs ..."

"We weren't expected to win, and we were winning," said Smerekanich, who had a game-high four assists. "We were just like, 'Hey, let's go, we've got to take it up another notch and show them what we've got.'

"We believe in (coach Tony Whitmer) a lot, and once we know that we're not expected to win a lot of pressure is off. So that's why we can just go out and play and do what he tells us and have fun. ... We were having fun, no matter if we won or lost.

"It's great to win. We finally won a big game. We're back to where we were before Christmas break."

Playing loose, the Bulldogs (9-3) went on an 11-0 run over the first 4:40 of the fourth quarter. The key baskets both came from junior Kaitlin Shultz.

A pair of Alex Pfouts free-throws pushed the Green lead to three points, but its first shot on the next possession missed. However, Pfouts (12 points) grabbed the rebound off the errant shot and kicked out to Shultz, who buried a 3-pointer from the top of the key.

Fort Recovery's try on the other end was no good, and Shultz took a long pass off the rebound for an easy fast-break bucket. The back-to-back hoops by Shultz, who finished second on the team to Pfouts with 11 points, put the Bulldogs up 43-35 and forced a Tribe timeout.

"That was the biggest stretch of the game right there," said Whitmer, whose team hails from just south of Akron. "We didn't force a shot inside, kicked it out, (Shultz) knocked it down and you could just see everybody's expression was like, 'Now we're truly playing together.' ... That's when I started to feel good."

Green, a Division I school, added four more points after the timeout before Fort Recovery (10-2) finally got on the board with a Holly Stein bucket. The Indians missed their first eight shots of the quarter before Stein scored nine points in the final 3:20 of the game.

"0-for-8, no matter how well you play on the defensive end is going to hurt you," said FRHS coach Jeff Roessner, whose team took the top ranking in the state last week but has lost its last two games. "But I thought we didn't play particularly well on the defensive end either. So when you add the two pieces together ...

"It just looked like we were really unsure what we wanted to accomplish offensively, really unsure as to what to do when we caught the ball, and boy it really showed up in this game. It really had a big impact."

Stein was about all the Indians had offensively. She was the only Tribe player to score in the fourth quarter as she finished 8-of-12 from the field and had 20 points. She also had 10 rebounds and three assists.

The rest of the Fort Recovery squad combined to go just 10-of-38 (26 percent) from the field, including 3-of-17 (18 percent) from 3-point range.

While the Indians struggled offensively, Green's strategy was to try to create easy opportunities - "We love to run," Smerekanich said.

And the Bulldogs did, every chance they got.

They scored 20 points off turnovers compared to four for FRHS, and made a habit of tossing long outlet passes after defensive rebounds.

Green, which was shooting just 30 percent for the season, hit for 43 percent Monday. Fort Recovery had been limiting teams to just 28 percent from the field.

Smerekanich joined Pfouts and Shultz in double figures with 11 points, and Amanda Rose scored nine. Lauren Forquer grabbed seven rebounds.

Roessner agreed his team allowed far too many transition baskets.

"No question, especially early," he said. "Later when it happened it was because we were pressing and you're going to give those up. ... It seemed like every time they got a rebound they made a long outlet pass and we were chasing.

"That's the highest shooting percentage we've given up in a long time."

Following Stein for the Tribe was fellow senior Vicki Roessner with six points and three assists. Joanna Snyder had seven rebounds, and Lauren Wenning played well off the bench with five rebound in the opening half.

Junior varsity

Fort Recovery didn't allow the Green Bulldogs to hang around very long.

The Indians and Green were tied at two early in Monday morning's game, but the Tribe scored the next 14 points in a row as it cruised to a 49-27 victory.

Chelsea Leuthold had 12 points for the Indians, who pushed their lead to 18 points at halftime. Emily May and Kinsey Wenning each added seven points, and Josie Guggenbiller scored six.

Leann Ciocca's seven points were a team-high for the Bulldogs. Arielle Malcolm added six.[[In-content Ad]]