Tribe set for playoffs

Just ask anyone affiliated with the Fort Recovery High School football team what it feels like to be playing in the program’s first playoff game and there will be no shortage of answers.
Great. Awesome. Exciting.
“I remember sitting down Sunday breaking down film and just kind of giggling to myself because we were getting ready for another week of football instead of packing things up,” said FRHS coach Brent Niekamp, whose team travels to Fort Loramie at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Division VII Region 26 quarterfinal. “That was special that it was a new challenge and a little different.”
The new feeling, he said, is most prevalent at school and throughout the Fort Recovery community.
“There are so many people that are excited for us and supporting us,” he added. “It’s making school a lot of fun.
“The teachers are excited, the other students are excited and obviously the kids that are playing are really excited. It makes it a really fun time right now.”
But the Indians (6-4) know they have a tall order ahead.
The Fort Loramie Redskins are 7-3, with their only three losses coming to state-ranked teams (Minster, Tinora and Lehman Catholic). They have a quarterback, Andy Grewe, who has been the focal point of its offense all season. Grewe, a senior, has thrown for 1,219 yards and added 935 more on the ground and has accounted for 18 (12 pass, three rush) of the Redskins’ 43 touchdowns.
“That was our biggest question mark coming into the year. Who was going to play quarterback?” said Fort Loramie coach Matt Burgbacher, who added that Grewe’s status for Saturday’s contest is in question because of a knee injury. “We came into this year without an identity. We had a rough week 1 game (a 34-0 shutout loss to Minster), but week 2 we found our niche.”
Stopping Grewe, Niekamp said, will be the Indians’ top priority.
“We feel like he’s their most dangerous threat especially when he is running,” Niekamp said. “He can keep plays alive with his legs, find receivers late or run for yards.
“We have to keep him bottled up with our defensive line (and) we have to be smart in terms of coverage on the back end.
“We kind of want him to throw the ball.”
Alex and Evan Schoen, who have 102 and 92 tackles respectively, anchor a Tribe defense that has allowed less than 20 points per game — the second-best in school history. Evan Schoen leads the team with 9 1/2 tackles for loss, and Seth Riegle, who has totaled 82 stops on the season, has 5 1/2 tackles behind the line of scrimmage.
It will be up to those three linebackers and the defensive line — tackles Tony Keller and Grant Hull and ends Nate Ontrop and Adam LeFevre — to contain Grewe and his backfield of Brad Pleiman and Josh Siegel.
For the Redskins, the challenge will be trying to stop the best running back in FRHS history.
Senior Cole Hull owns three school records — rushing yards in a season (1,318), rushing touchdowns (15) and single-season scoring (104 points). The first-team all-Midwest Athletic Conference running back has racked up more than 200 yards twice, including a 218-yard effort Oct. 3 against New Bremen that ranks fourth on the single-game rushing list. Two weeks later against the defending Division VII state champion Marion Local, Hull tallied 201 yards, the fifth-best mark in program history.
“He’s got to be our focus,” Burgbacher said of Hull. “We want to control him, and we don’t want to give up that big play to him. Fort Recovery has a good offensive line.
“We can say we want the quarterback to throw the ball, but they have a good quarterback. We just have to be solid all the way across the board.”
Caleb Martin, a sophomore, is the FRHS signal-caller, and has done an admirable job in just his first season at the helm of the Indians’ offense. Martin is 106-of-194 passing for 1,315 yards and 12 touchdowns. Junior Wes Wenning, a first-team all-conference wide receiver, has been Martin’s top target, catching 38 passes for 589 yards and eight touchdowns.
In addition to containing Hull and Martin, Burgbacher is hoping his Redskins squad can win the field position and turnover battles. Fort Loramie has picked off 16 passes and recovered 12 fumbles.
“It’s huge,” Burgbacher said of his team’s 28 takeaways. “Field position in high school football is enormous. Our defense has done an outstanding job getting those turnovers. Football is a game of momentum, and a turnover can be one of the biggest shifts in momentum.”
But for the Tribe, Saturday will be about the atmosphere of playing in the school’s first playoff game.
“I think we’ll have a pretty good following,” Niekamp said of the prospect of fans making the 25-mile trip to Fort Loramie. “It’s our first one ever. I know there’s been a lot of people that have been waiting a long time for that.”