Tribe shuts down JC

FORT RECOVERY — This season, the Patriots have been holding opponents for long periods of time without points.
Saturday afternoon at Fort Site Fieldhouse, the visiting Jay County High School girls basketball team got a taste of its own medicine.
Fort Recovery held the Patriots scoreless for more than eight minutes — Jay also went 26 minutes between field goals — in a 41-24 victory in the first game of a girls/boys hoops doubleheader (see related story).
“That is probably the thing I was proud of the most was our defense,” said FRHS coach Brian Patch, whose team moves to 5-2 on the season. “For them to get four field goals — two in each half — I thought our defense was tremendous today.”
JCHS coach Chris Krieg, whose team was 4-of-36 (11 percent) from the field, said his team has to do a better job offensively.
“We can’t shoot like that and expect to compete,” said Krieg. “Fort Recovery is a fine ball team.”
Jay County (9-2) had a 6-3 lead midway through the opening quarter on back-to-back buckets by Ava Kunkler and Catherine Dunn followed by a pair of free throws by Taylor Homan.
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But then things started to fall apart for the visiting Patriots, who had their next 10 possessions come up scoreless. Jay County missed six shots, turned the ball over three times and came up empty on a pair of free throws.
In the meantime, Fort Recovery went on a 14-point run spanning more than eight minutes, during which Tori Lennartz scored five of her game-high 15 points and Kara Jutte assisted on back-to-back buckets by Whitney Will.
Jay County’s Abby Wendel — who was 6-of-6 from the line — finally sank a pair of free throws to stop the Tribe run with 3:16 remaining in the first half. It ended a scoreless drought of 8 minutes, 13 seconds for the visitors.
Lennartz, a FRHS senior, said her team was prepared for the Jay County offense.
“We knew what they were going to run so we worked on it (in practice),” she said after the game. “We made some changes (throughout the week) and I think we got out on shooters.
“Our defense won us the game today.”
In the third quarter, Jay County made four of its five free throws while missing all six of its field goal attempts, and trailed 30-12 heading into the fourth quarter.
With 4:41 remaining in the game, Lennartz hit a pair of free throws to give the Indians a 34-14 lead. They were the final points of the afternoon for Lennartz, who at the time was outscoring Jay County by herself.
Patch told the Saginaw Valley State University commit she was going to have to score for the Indians to beat a solid Patriot team.
“Coach told me (before the game) that I’m going to have to score so I stepped up a little bit,” Lennartz said. “I used my teammates’ screens … they got me open, so it worked.”
Patch said he saw some leadership qualities out of his senior he had been waiting for all season.
“She actually stepped up and showed great leadership today,” Patch said. “She’s bought so much into trying to be a team and trying to play together that she hasn’t been looking for her own shot.
“Not that that’s her fault — or anyone’s fault — she’s just trying to play as a team this year. Putting her team before herself … that says a lot about her.”
Fort Recovery had a 39-16 lead — its largest margin of the game — with three minutes to play until Homan hit a 3-pointer from the right wing on an assist from Bre McIntire. It stopped a streak of 18 straight misses by Jay County, marking its first field goal in 26:22.
During the stretch, Dunn and Wendel had to sit because of foul trouble. With them on the bench — they eventually fouled out in the fourth — the Patriots were forcing shots rather than waiting for open looks.
“They played harder than we did today,” Krieg said of the Indians, adding he told his team it would have to play with a high level of energy. “We didn’t play with high energy in the first half. Games like this, you have to play at a high level.”
Homan, a sophomore, hit another 3-pointer, this time on a dish from Hanna Ault. Her buckets from long range were the only two field goals for Jay County in the second half, and the only points in the fourth quarter by either team didn’t come from the free-throw line.

Junior varsity
Jay County overcame a six-point deficit heading into the fourth quarter and held off the Indians for a 29-27 victory.
Fort Recovery used an 11-point third quarter to erase its own deficit, but was limited to just five points down the stretch.
The Tribe’s Sydney Dues led all players with 10 points. Grace Gehle and Devin Post netted five points each. Kiah Wendel chipped in with four points.
Britlyn Dues of Jay County paced the Patriots with eight points, followed by Kyndal Miller’s six points. Betsy Muhlenkamp, Briana Muhlenkamp and Audrey Shreve all tallied four points for the Patriots.