Tribe smacks visiting Lancers to move to 5-1 (12/31/04)

FORT RECOVERY — The Indians are having a happy new year already, thank you.

Fort Recovery’s boys basketball team is already one win away from matching last season’s total — six. On the eve of New Year’s Eve Thursday, it ran its home record to a perfect 5-0 with a 65-44 beating of the Linclonview Lancers.

“It’s a good win, especially since we had our layoff. That was our first game in two weeks,” said Tribe coach Brian Patch, whose team is now 5-1 overall with the lone loss coming at undefeated Minster. “The effort was good.”

Much the same as their last contest 12 days ago against Mississinawa Valley, the Indians broke the game open in the third quarter.

Already leading by 10 at the half, they opened on a 12-3 run to nearly double the advantage. Senior Dusty Tobe and freshman Clint Tobe each hit a 3-pointer during the stretch.

Lincolnview (3-5) got a couple of buckets to cut the deficit to 14 points, but Fort Recovery immediately answered with a 10-3 run which essentially ended the contest.

“I thought at halftime we kind of settled down a little bit,” said Patch. “We had been trying to force it (inside).”

Force it or not, the Indians dominated in the paint. They allowed just six Lancer rebounds in the first half and held a 31-17 advantage on the glass for the game.

The work on the glass and some excellent passing also led to plenty of inside points, as Travis VanSkyock led the team with 17 points and nine rebounds.

Sean Kahlig, who scored six straight Tribe points in the first quarter, finished with 14 points and eight rebounds. Dusty Tobe added 11 points, five rebounds and four assists, and Tyler Wuebker had seven rebounds, five assists and four points.

Tobe, who was the 2003-04 leading scorer but has struggled some this year, finished 4-of-8 from the field with a 3-pointer.

“Dusty finally hit some big shots for us tonight,” Patch said. “... That should get him started and get some confidence back.”

Clint Tobe drained two of his three 3-point attempts in the contest and finished with eight points. Fort Recovery went 5-of-10 from 3-point range, and shot 59 percent for the game overall.

The Indians scored the first five points of the contest, not allowing a Lincolnview hoop until the 3:11 mark of the first quarter. They built an 11-2 lead before the Lancers scored again, and led by eight at the end of the first quarter.

The advantage bumped to 10 points at halftime, and the Tribe stormed away with its 24 third-quarter points.

Lincolnview had two players in double figures — Mike Breese with 13 points and Seth Evans with 10 — but killed any chance it had with poor free-throw shooting. It hit two fewer free throws than the Indians despite making six more trips to the line, finishing a meager 6-of-17 (35 percent).

Evans made just two of his nine foul shots.

Erik Elston added nine points, and Kory Thatcher scored eight to go along with a team-high of four rebounds.

Junior varsity

The Fort Recovery junior varsity team trailed by just three at halftime, but let the deficit grow too large in a 45-40 lost to Lincolnview.

The Indians (3-3) were still close after three quarters, trailing by just four points. However, the deficit grew to 12 points in the fourth quarter, and that number proved to big too big to overcome.

Fort Recovery pulled to as close as five points on a 3-pointer by Trent Brunswick with 17 seconds left only to have that number stand as the final margin.

Brunswick finished with a team-high 13 points, and Lucas Staugler had eight points. Tyler Thobe finished with eight rebounds, and Lucas Staugler grabbed four. Curt Heitkamp notched five steals, and Tony Diller and Aaron Kahlig each dished out three assists.

Josh Korte was the high man for Lincolnview with 11 points, five rebounds and three steals.

Zach Profit had eight points, and Mitch Ringwald added four rebounds and three assists.[[In-content Ad]]