Strong 4th lifts FR over Jay

FORT RECOVERY — Through three quarters, the Patriots had the slight edge.

Both teams had played stifling defense. Neither had led by more than four points.

But the visitors had been ahead or tied with the Tribe for a run of 13 minutes.

When the Indians ended that stretch, Jay County was unable to respond.

Fort Recovery High School’s girls basketball team scored the first 12 points of the fourth quarter Saturday and pulled away from the Patriots for a 44-34 victory.

“Our whole thing has been how we’re going to respond to adversity,” said FRHS coach Brian Patch, whose team improved to 4-0. “That’s kind of been our theme …

“That’s the biggest thing we’ve been talking about is our mental toughness. And I didn’t think we showed a lot in the first half, but we responded big in the second half, especially when it mattered.”

While the Indians rose to the challenge late, Jay County couldn’t keep up the poise it had displayed in the first three quarters. The Patriots turned the ball over eight times in the final eight minutes and shot just 3-of-15 from the field.

“When you turn the ball over eight times and you shoot like we shot, you’re not going to beat a good team,” said JCHS coach Kirk Comer. “You’ve got to give them credit. They caused us to be out of sync on our offense. They made the plays down the stretch when you had to and we didn’t.”

Jay County (6-5) was up by three heading into the fourth quarter before Jocie Kaiser hit a 3-pointer from the left corner. Carley Stone followed with a steal and fast-break hoop to give the Indians their first lead since the 4:57 mark of the first half and then drove the right side for another layup.

Comer called a timeout to try to slow Fort Recovery down, but the home team tacked on another five points in a row before Britlyn Dues finally hit a 3-pointer off of a Hanna Ault assist with 2:52 left. The Patriots never close the gap to fewer than six points for the remainder of the game.

“I thought we were fine until they got the lead,” said Comer. “Then we started trying things that we haven’t been doing. We started forcing some things. And it just kind of snowballed from there.”

The Indians hit five of their six free throw attempts in the final two minutes to put the game away.

Kaiser was key to Fort Recovery’s success throughout the second half as she scored all of her 11 points after the break. She also had team highs of six rebounds and three assists.

“Jocie has been a leader for us and she stepped up big in that fourth quarter — hit a big three in the corner for us, made some big plays, hit some big free throws,” said Patch.

Whitney Will led the Tribe with 16 points while matching Kaiser’s six rebounds.

Britlyn Dues was the only Patriot to reach double figures as she scored 12 points, including a 5-of-6 effort from the free-throw line. Gwen Omstead and Taylor Homan added six points apiece as JCHS shot just 22 percent from the field.

The loss was the Patriots fourth straight at Fort Site Fieldhouse, with their last win coming with Comer at the helm in 2008. Each of the previous three defeats came by double figures, so the coach hopes the nature of the game — a dogfight — will be a confidence booster despite the outcome.

“I was proud of our effort. I thought we played hard,” Comer said. “You can’t teach experience. And hopefully this experience will help us be better down the road. I think it will.”

Junior varsity

Jay County grabbed an early lead and fought of multiple comeback tries from the Indians for a 31-21 victory.

Sam Twigg racked up 13 points, including a pair of 3-pointers, for the Patriots, who were up 9-4 after the opening quarter. They had a six-point advantage at halftime and built it to double figures before FRHS closed to within five. The visitors then pulled away for the 10-point win.

Hallie Fields followed Twigg with six points for Jay County. Hanna Dillon and Kendal Garringer added five points apiece.

Chloe Showalter hit a pair of 3-point attempts to lead the Indians with six points. Valerie Muhlenkamp had five points.