Jay, FR to meet in 2014

The Patriots and Indians have battled on the court, field, course, track and in the pool. In 2014, they will take the fight to the gridiron.
Jay County and Fort Recovery high schools have come to an agreement on a four-year football contract, with the first ever meeting between the state-line rivals scheduled for Sept. 5.
“I think it’s something that both communities have wanted ever since Fort Recovery started playing football,” said JCHS athletics director Steve Boozier, a 1985 Jay County graduate and former football player and coach. “I think it’s a good opportunity … The two communities are nine miles apart. … There’s a lot of people over the years who have grown up in one community and moved to the other … I just think it’ll be a nice connection between the two communities.”
The first game in the football rivalry will be played at Jay County’s Harold E. Schutz Memorial. The 2015 games will move to Barrenbrugge Athletic Park in Fort Recovery with the site to continue rotating year-to-year.
The schools will split revenue evenly each of the first two years, with the home team to retain the profits from ticket sales in subsequent seasons. FRHS athletics director Kurt Rammel and Boozier have also agreed they will honor the visiting school’s season tickets during the first two years of the football rivalry.
“It’s been one of those things I think everybody has spoke about between the communities, Fort Recovery and Jay County, about getting together in all sports not just … a few here and there,” said Rammel, who, like Boozier, is in his first year as the AD.
“It just made for a good time to try to start that and get the ball rolling.”
The game will be played during the third week of the Indiana season and the second week of the Ohio season.
Jay County had played Franklin County in week three for eight years, but was left with an open date when the Wildcats were forced to drop the game from their schedule because of a conference conflict.
This season, the Patriots filled that gap with the international game against Wallaceburg (Ontario, Canada), and although that was a positive experience, coach Tim Millspaugh said he was glad his team was able to find an opponent much closer to home.
“I know joining a conference right now there was that opening in week three,” said Millspaugh as JCHS prepares to join the Allen County Athletic Conference in 2014-15. “We were hoping not to travel all over to find a game. It’s definitely nice.
“I think it’s good for the communities.
“I think it’ll be a rivalry game in a hurry.”
Fort Recovery has played Waynesfield-Goshen in its second game each of the last four seasons.
It won all four meetings, including a 54-0 victory in Waynesfield on Sept. 6.
The two schools were still under contract to play each other next year, but mutually decided Thursday to end that agreement.
“I think it makes sense in terms of how close they are,” said Tribe coach Brent Niekamp of the opportunity to play Jay County. “There’s that strong community bond where a lot of people know each other.
“Also, they’re a big school, and if we can beat them, that’s a lot of computer points for us.”
While Indiana has an all-in football playoff, only eight teams in each region make the postseason in Ohio based on a computer system that awards points partially on opponents’ record and school size. FRHS, which started its football program in 1992, has never made the playoffs.
Since their first meeting in girls basketball in 1980, Jay County and Fort Recovery have also competed against each other in boys basketball, baseball, softball, track, swimming and cross country.
The boys basketball rivalry — in which seven of the first 10 meetings in the series that began in 1997 came down to the last possession — is scheduled to resume this season after a four-year hiatus.
Niekamp, who played for the Indians’ 1999 state runner-up squad, fondly remembers games against JCHS and looks forward to his football players having the same opportunity to experience that atmosphere.
“Jay County, when I was in high school, was always a really fun game to play, because the crowds were enormous,” he said. “Those were fun games to be in.”[[In-content Ad]]