Tribe rallies, falls short

MINSTER, Ohio — The Indians and Wildcats entered Friday night’s game sporting 5-2 marks and tied for fourth place in the Midwest Athletic Conference.
They proved to be as evenly-matched as their records showed.
The teams were tied three times — at 7, 14 and 21 — but the Tribe came up one yard short of forging a fourth.
Cole Hull was stopped on a fourth-and-goal run from the 1-yard line with less than a minute to play Friday as the Division VII No. 6 Fort Recovery High School football team fell 28-23 to Minster.
Hull had pulled the Indians (5-3, 3-3 MAC) even when he broke a 72-yard touchdown run on their second play of the second half.
But Minster (6-2, 4-2 MAC) took the lead by a touchdown for the third time when Evan Huelsman scored on a 4-yard run early in the fourth quarter.
Fort Recovery went three-and-out on its next drive, but then marched down the field after taking possession again with 5:50 remaining.
Hull carried the load, running the ball 11 times while Caleb Martin mixed in completions to Darien Sheffer and Wes Wenning.
Having already converted a pair of fourth-down runs earlier in the drive, coach Brent Niekamp gave the ball to his workhorse again on fourth-and-goal from the 1. But this time Eli Wolf, who will play next year at Eastern Michigan, was able to stop Hull short of the goal line.
Minster ended its next possession by running out of the end zone to avoid the possibility of a blocked punt, and then sacked Martin on the final play of the game.
Hull ran 30 times for 180 yards to lead Fort Recovery, while Martin completed half of his 22 pass attempts for 101 yards. Martin hit Evan Schoen with a 35-yard touchdown pass to open the scoring, and Mitch Stammen later reached the end zone on a 3-yard quarterback sneak.
Josh Nixon threw for 229 yards and a TD pass to Wolf as he paced the Wildcats. Bryce Schmiesing caught six passes for 111 yards, and Huelsman ran 22 times for 94 yards and a pair of TDs.
Fort Recovery will return home Friday to host Division VII No. 1 Marion Local (7-0, 5-0 MAC), which shut out Division V No. 1 Coldwater (6-1, 5-1 MAC) 20-0 Friday.