FR thrashes South Adams

BERNE — The Tribe has had nightmares of Dec. 30.
The Starfires erased a 20-point deficit in the second half to stun the Indians, 61-59, at Fort Site Fieldhouse.
As the Indians built another comfortable lead Tuesday at StarDome in Berne, another comeback was not in the cards for the Stars.
Fort Recovery High School’s boys basketball team opened with a 10-0 run and added a dozen straight points later in the opening half to keep South Adams away in a 78-58 victory.
“The key tonight was coming out with a nice, hot start,” said FRHS coach Chris Guggenbiller. “That was a concern for me. I absolutely did not want to come out flat.
“I challenged the guys to come out with some energy.”
Fort Recovery (4-1) scored the first six points when Micaiah Cox put back an offensive rebound for two points, Wes Wenning drained two free throws and Chase Bruns scored on an assist from Brandon “Speedy” Schoen. South Adams (4-4), missed on its opening possession and turned the ball over twice, forcing coach Andy Brown into calling a timeout just 1 minute, 48 seconds, into the game.
After back-to-back buckets from Cox and Bruns, it was 10-0 Fort Recovery and Brown called his second timeout.
Cox led the Indians with 19 points, and Bruns added a baker’s dozen.
“You can pretty much sum up the game in the first four minutes of the first half and the last four minutes of the first half,” said Brown, alluding to the 12-0 run to close out the second quarter after the Starfires had gotten to within seven, 28-21. “You’re talking 22 points there. We battled back to seven … it looked like things were going.”
But then the Indians forced the tempo on both sides of the court.
South Adams made ill-advised passes, committing 16 turnovers.
It forced shots, finishing 21-of-58 (36.2 percent).
And it got beat to the other end on defense.
Fort Recovery pushed the ball up the court, often times drawing odd-man rushes. As an SAHS defender committed to the ball handler, the ball would get dished off to the corner for a 3-pointer or to a teammate streaking toward the basket.
The Tribe recorded assists on half of its 32 field goals, led by Schoen’s seven helpers and four by Bruns.
“Going into this year we knew we had the ability to go up and down,” Guggenbiller said. “We could play eight, nine guys pretty consistently. By the time the third and fourth quarter rolls around opponents are tired (and) we still feel relatively fresh. We continue to pressure that way and when we’re eight, nine guys deep we can do that.”
Cox grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds for a double-double, and six of those boards came on offense. The 6-foot, 4-inch junior had eight points on second chances alone, as the Indians had 14 offensive rebounds compared to just 12 defensively for South Adams.
“Wes and Micaiah did an excellent job of crashing the offensive boards,” Guggenbiller said. Wenning also had a pair of offensive boards and finished with six total as well as 14 points. “In transition we send our bigs to run straight to the rim. If we have a quick layup look and we miss a layup — we missed quite a few layups tonight — that big man is there for the cleanup.”
Matt Bihn was a flawless 5-of-5 from the floor, made both of his 3-point attempts and finished with 13 points to give Fort Recovery three players with at least 13 points. Darien Sheffer added nine points and six rebounds.
The one bright side for the Starfires, though, was a combined 38 points from Jared Grabau and Marcus Teeter. Grabau, who spearheaded the comeback win in Fort Recovery and hit the game-winning shot last season, had a game-high 20 points.
“I thought Jared played really well,” Brown said.
Grabau was 9-of-15 from the field, including 2-for-3 from 3-point range. Teeter made all eight of his free throws on his way to 18 points. He also had a team-leading eight rebounds.

Junior varsity
A late 3-pointer gave South Adams a one-point advantage, and the potential game-winning basket by Kyle Knapke from under the hoop had too much muscle on it as the Starfires held on for a 38-37 victory.
JD Groh of South Adams led all players with a dozen points and six rebounds. Joe Stuber and Terry Dawn added eight and seven points respectively. Nick Wurster and Lucas Bluhm recorded three points apiece.
Cade Wendel and Knapke had eight points each for the Indians. Reese Rogers totaled five points, with Clayton Pearson, Evan Post and Payton Jutte all scoring four points.