Tribe girls get first MAC win

FORT RECOVERY — The Indians struggled offensively.
It was defense that helped the Fort Recovery High School girls basketball team to its first conference win of the season.
The Tribe held Delphos St. John’s scoreless for nearly 10 minutes — including the entire third quarter — in a 41-21 victory Thursday over the visiting Blue Jays.
“Defensively I’m really happy with how we played,” said FRHS coach Brian Patch. “I thought our defense was pretty solid. We got after it, and we did a better job of rebounding in the second half.
“If we would have played offense like we played defense, this may have been a 30- to 40-point game, and we would have been really happy with how we played.”
With Fort Recovery (3-2, 1-1 Midwest Athletic Conference) leading 23-10 coming out of intermission, both teams traded turnovers — there were 37 in the game — before the Indians extended their lead on a bucket by Whitney Will.
That’s when things continued to fall apart for St. John’s (2-4, 0-2 MAC).
The Blue Jays turned the ball over six more times in the third quarter and missed all six of their shots, including a pair of free throws early in the period.
“Their defense kind of took us out,” said St. John’s coach Dan Grothouse. “They are very active in their zone, and they’re long. We didn’t have anyone that was willing to be aggressive, attack and look for shots.
“It was a struggle to get some good looks.”
Even when the Blue Jays had those open shots, few of them fell. They only made two field goals the entire second half and shot just 22 percent from the field for the game.
Meanwhile, Fort Recovery continued to build on its lead in the third quarter on buckets from Kendra Siefring and Jocelyn Kaiser and a free throw by Tori Lennartz. The Tribe scored all nine points in the frame, pushing its advantage to 32-10.
Siefring shared the team- and game-high in scoring with teammate Grace Thien. They had nine points and added three rebounds apiece. Lennartz had five points, and Will finished with six.
But it wasn’t smooth sailing for the Indians, either.
They turned the ball over six times in the third quarter and a total of 20 for the night. A turnover on their second possession of the fourth quarter led to Madilynn Schulte hitting a 3-pointer from the left corner 62 seconds into the final period, ending Delphos’ scoreless streak of nearly 10 minutes.
The Blue Jays, who are normally a solid 3-point shooting team, were 1-of-11 from the perimeter, something Grothouse said was because his team wasn’t looking for the long-range shot.
“It was hard to get them to look up for a shot,” he said. “They were so worried about making the next pass that no one was putting themselves in position.
“They weren’t ready to shoot the ball.”
At the other end of the court, Fort Recovery shot 50 percent from the field, including a 3-for-5 effort from beyond the arc.
Siefring scored eight of her nine points in the paint, and Will tallied all six of her points under the hoop.
Eight Indians scored, and Patch said he was pleased with their ability to share the ball.
“We feel we have a lot of players that can score. We don’t need one player to go out and get 20,” Patch said. “We don’t have to get the ball to one person.
“We’re more concerned with Fort Recovery scoring than one person scoring.”
St. John’s was able to string together some offense in the final quarter, outscoring the Indians 11-9 in the frame. Six of the 11 points came from the free-throw line, as the Blue Jays were able to drive to the bucket and draw fouls.
Sydney Fischbach, the Blue Jays’ leading scorer with seven points, hit three consecutive free throws midway through the final frame, and Lexie Hays hit a pair in the final minute.
Going forward, Patch said, the Indians need to cut down on the number of turnovers.
On many occasions, Fort Recovery tried to force the ball to teammates who were double-teamed.
Even though it wasn’t pretty, Lennartz said she was satisfied with the victory.
“We didn’t play the best,” she said, “but it still feels good to get the win.”

Junior varsity
Fort Recovery’s junior varsity team picked up a 24-8 victory over the Blue Jays in two quarters of action.
The Indians had a 10-5 lead after the first quarter and held Delphos to just three points in the second.
Carley Stone and Kiah Wendel had eight points apiece for the Indians, who also got four points each from Sydney Dues and Chloe Metzger.