Happy, healthy

VAN WERT, Ohio — This time, there were no tears.
Already leading by 25 less than two minutes into the second quarter, the Indians’ locked up their sectional championship early Saturday. And then they accomplished their second, and nearly as important, goal — getting out of Van Wert healthy.
Fort Recovery went heavily to its bench in the fourth quarter of its 79-37 victory Saturday in the Division III sectional finale over the Parkway Panthers.
“It feels good to come out of here with a win and everybody healthy,” said FRHS coach Doug Bihn, whose team had a sad bus ride home last season after then-senior Nicole Pottkotter suffered a season-ending knee injury in its championship win. “That’s the big thing. We wanted to make sure everybody was healthy tonight. Last year we had a big injury. We didn’t want to go through that same thing.”
Although Parkway (3-18) scored the first points of Saturday’s game, the result was never really in doubt. The Indians (19-2) took control with a 9-0 run in the first quarter and then broke the game wide open with a 17-0 spurt that bridged the first-quarter break.
Fort Recovery had topped Parkway by 60 during the regular season, but Bihn said he wanted his team to ignore that result with the sectional title on the line.
“We want to achieve competitive greatness,” he said. “We want to play as well as we can play every night, do what we can do right, and the scoreboard will take care of itself. That’s been a big focus for us all week. We don’t care who the opponent is, we’ve just got to make sure we take care of what we can take care of.”
The Indians accomplished that goal early, shooting 9-of-13 in the opening quarter and hitting six of their first nine 3-point tries. They scored the final nine points of the first period on 3-pointers by Kendra Brunswick, Olivia Schwieterman and Olivia Thien,  and had seven different players in the scorebook in the first eight minutes.
Kylie Kahlig made every shot she attempted, finishing 6-of-6 from the field and 1-of-1 from the line for a team-high 14 points. Brunswick followed with 14 points and four assists.
And Thien hit a pair of 3-pointers as part of her 12-point evening.
“We’re a pretty deep team,” said Bihn. “On any given night, we’ve got five kids we believe that can probably score 20 points.
“We all know when you make shots it makes it a heck of a lot easier to do this. That’s the key to the game. It’s always a big boost in the arm when you can come out and shoot the ball early.
“When you get a couple of them on a roll, it seems like it gets contagious.”
Fort Recovery followed up its run of 3-pointers at the end of the first quarter by scoring the first eight points of the second. It pushed the lead to 32 points and the half, and used predominantly junior varsity players for the final six minutes of the game.
Kelly Nietfeld scored most of her points on put-back baskets, joining Kahlig, Brunswick and Thien in double figures with 10 points. She also grabbed a game-high nine rebounds, leading the Indians to a 35-22 advantage on the glass.
“Kelly, she’s a great player,” said Bihn. “She plays really well (underneath) for the size she is. The kid works hard. You can never question Kelly’s effort.”
Schwieterman added nine points, all from long distance. Holly Brunswick followed Nietfeld with five rebounds, and Nicole Dilworth matched Kendra Brunswick with four assists.
Becca Harshman was the only Parkway player in double figures as she shot 8-of-12 for 16 points. Haley Burtch added nine points.
Fort Recovery will take on Tinora in the semifinal round of the Division III district tournament at Kalida Thursday at 8 p.m. It dropped out of the tournament in the district semifinal round in each of the last two seasons.[[In-content Ad]]