Indians conquer district

WAPAKONETA - New Bremen controlled the opening tip.

The Indians owned everything else.

Just two seconds into Friday's district championship game, Michael Gaerke tipped the ball away from a Cardinal player for a steal.

Greg Kahlig hit a 3-pointer on the first Tribe possession, and Cody Fiely pushed the lead to 5-0 with a driving lay-up after another New Bremen turnovers.

The Division IV No. 8 Fort Recovery High School boys basketball team never looked back, leading all the way in a 44-32 victory over their conference rivals.

"We came out and we gave Greg the ball and he shot a deep three," said Gaerke of his team's opening possession. "The crowd went wild and we felt like, 'This game is going to be in our hands,' ... and it was."

The win secured the first district championship for the Indians since 1999 and just the second in the last 39 years. It also avenged a regular-season loss to New Bremen that denied Fort Recovery the outright Midwest Athletic Conference title.

"It feels great," said senior Craig Tobe. "I don't know. There's no words to describe it."

"It feels sweet," added Fiely, who scored nine points to trail only Greg Kahlig's 21 for the Tribe. "It's incredible. Hopefully we just keep going."

The Indians (20-3) never stopped against New Bremen, with Kahlig scoring 11 of the team's first 13 points. He buried back-to-back 3-pointers as FRHS extended its lead to 13-3 and forced a New Bremen timeout less than five minutes into the game.

"Normally we're not a very good starting team," said Brian Patch, a Jay County High School graduate in his seventh year coaching the Indians. "Tonight our kids got off to a hot start. I think that was the key to the game.

"Coming into the game we told them the team that handles the atmosphere, handles the pressure the best, will be the team that wins. I thought our kids came out loose ..."

New Bremen closed to within five a couple of times in the second quarter, but Fiely made it a nine-point halftime lead for the Indians when he was fouled on a 3-point try with 0.2 seconds left.

The Cardinals (19-4) never got closer than six points in the second half.

Kahlig had his highest scoring game of the tournament thus far as he shot 6-of-9 from the field, including his three 3-pointers in the first quarter, and 6-of-9 from the line. He now has 1,676 points for his career, which ranks third in MAC history behind only Ryan Uhlenhake (1,692) of St. Henry and Kyle Gehle (1,744) of Versailles.

"I thought Kahlig was the key," said New Bremen coach Mike Ernst, whose team won the regular-season matchup 50-47 to share the MAC title with Fort Recovery and St. John's. "I mean, he came out and just decided he was going to take off from the start. They just pushed it out to 10 points right off the bat. Basically that's where it stayed the whole game. ... We couldn't get a whole lot closer than six, and they couldn't push it farther than 12 or 13. They are a very hard team to play from behind against."

Kahlig got help from Fiely, who hit 2-of-3 field-goal tries and added five more points at the line, and Tobe, who added eight points.

But perhaps the most impressive thing to come out of Friday's game was the way the Indians handled New Bremen's size inside.

They constantly swarmed the post, forcing seven first-quarter turnovers, against the Cardinal lineup that boasts three players at 6-feet-7-inches or taller.

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Justin Eilerman, a 6-foot-7 senior, totaled 13 points and shot 50 percent, but no one else on the squad had more than 6 points.

"I thought our kids came out and executed the game plan perfectly," said Patch. "We did a good job of rebounding the ball.

"Defensively we just knew the kids that we could play off ... and for the most part our kids did a good job of doing that all night long. They didn't get too many free, easy looks."

Fort Recovery also out-rebounded the Cardinals 20-17, led by six boards from Kahlig and four by Fiely.

While New Bremen struggled to get the ball inside, it also had a tough time hitting any outside shots to help open up the Indians' zone. The Cardinals finished just 2-of-15 from 3-point range.

"We've got to hit some shots," said Ernst, whose team had won 10 straight before Friday night. "That's not going to get it done. I thought we took good shots for the most part. ... Tonight they didn't got in for whatever reason. We shot 32 percent, and you're not going to beat anybody this year shooting 32 percent."

Fort Recovery will make its first trip to regional play in more than a decade Tuesday when they travel to Fairmont's Trent Arena in Kettering. The will play Lockland, which defeated Franklin Monroe 59-36 to earn its district, title at 5:30 p.m.

Lockland beat Fort Loramie in the regional semifinal round last season before falling to Ada in the regional championship.

"It felt great. It felt good for our kids," said Patch, whose team had lost district championship games in 2004 and 2008. "You get real close with the kids when you're around them. These senior kids are special. The kids are close with my kids. There's just that special bond you have. ... You want it for the kids more than anything else. ... I just wanted these kids to have a great ride this last year.

"It feels good to be called district champs."[[In-content Ad]]