Regional revenge

SIDNEY, Ohio — With a 12-point lead, the Tribe defense was trying to get another stop.
It had done so a number of times already in the second half, tightening the clamp on a potent Wildcat offense.
The secondary hung back, protecting the end zone but still expecting throws underneath.
Facing second-and-1 with 20 seconds left on the clock, Minster quarterback Josh Nixon rolled to his left and tried to lob a pass Jared Thobe in the end zone for a last-ditch score.
Backpedaling, Tanner Koch leaped and snagged the ball out of the air, falling to the ground at the just inside the Indians’ 1 yard line with 13 seconds remaining.
The celebration began.
The Tribe got its revenge.
Fort Recovery is the district champion.
The Indians march on.
Fort Recovery High School’s football team scored 15 points in the second quarter and held the Minster offense in check for most of the final 24 minutes for a 33-21 victory in the Division VII Region 26 championship at Sidney Memorial Stadium in Sidney, Ohio.
“It feels great,” said FRHS junior quarterback Caleb Martin, who threw for two touchdowns and ran for another. “Losing to them in the regular season, it feels great to come back in the playoffs and get them when it really matters.”
Martin added that beating Minster, which won 14-12 Oct. 9 in Fort Recovery, was a big hurdle mentally.
“Now we know we can do anything,” he said.
Fort Recovery coach Brent Niekamp had the same feeling.
“It was a huge hurdle getting over,” said Niekamp, whose team improved to 11-2 after beating the Wildcats (10-3), the 2014 Division VI state champions. “That is a really good football team. Obviously they got us before. Honestly I was a little concerned if that would weigh on us, but it didn’t.
“Our kids were ready for a fight and they fought for four quarters and got them.”
Eighth-ranked Fort Recovery threw the first punch, marching 80 yards in eight plays to score on its opening drive. Martin, who had 196 yards through the air and another 59 on the ground, capped the scoring drive with an 8-yard touchdown run around the left side of the line, extending his right arm as he hit the corner of the end zone for a 6-0 Tribe lead.
Top-seeded Minster, which is also fifth in the state, responded with a one-two combo, scoring on each of its next two drives while forcing the Indians to a three-and-out in between. Evan Huelsman got in the end zone on a 2-yard touchdown to tie the score, and Nixon hit Jacob Dues on a 14-yard fade to the left corner of the end zone for the other TD.
By making two extra points, Minster had a 14-6 lead with just under three minutes left in the opening quarter.
The Wildcats would have much preferred if the second quarter had never begun.
That is when the Indians’ offense really started to find its groove.
The defense was able to make adjustments too.

On the ensuing drive, Fort Recovery again moved 80 yards with Martin scrambling to find Koch in the back of the end zone for a 10-yard score.
The Indians forced Minster to a three-and-out, and it took them just three plays to reach the end zone again when Martin connected with Wes Wenning for a 54-yard touchdown. Martin, who had nearly all day to throw the ball, sat in the pocket and launched a pass to the middle of the field toward Wenning. The senior had to slow down for Martin’s slightly-underthrown pass, and he towered over Jonathan Niemeyer to make the grab at the Minster 8 yard line. That’s where Niemeyer fell and Wenning pranced into the end zone.
The Tribe failed on the two-point conversion, but had an 18-14 lead it never gave up.
“The pass game started working and we didn’t have to rely on the run like the first quarter,” sophomore running back Will Homan said. “Marty (Martin) stepped up and made plays. The line gave him time.”
While Martin was the key to the Indians offense in the second quarter, the second half belonged to Homan.
The speedster went into the locker room — the Indians had a 21-18 lead after Darien Sheffer kicked a 22-yard field goal as the first-half clock expired — with 102 yards on 17 carries.
In the second half, he pounded the football 12 more times, adding another 140 yards and two touchdowns, one of which came on a 59-yard run after Martin scrambled for a first down on third-and-8. Homan’s scamper made it 27-14, and he added a 1-yard run in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach for the Wildcats.
“He’s never disappointed us,” Niekamp said of Homan, who finished with 242 yards, the third-highest single-game total in FRHS history. “He plays so hard. He is such a tough little runner. He is a smart football player and he plays his guts out. When a guy runs like that and plays that hard, then everybody on the team feels like they have to step it up to help him out.”
Step up. It is precisely what Homan had to do when the team’s leading rusher, Kyle Schroer, broke his fibula in the first quarter of the regional semifinal win over Lehman Catholic.
“It feels great I can do it for Kyle,” Homan said. “It is the last game he ever played last week. (We) just keep playing for him.”
“We ran the ball well pretty much the whole game,” said Niekamp, whose team had 293 rushing yards. “This time of the year, if you can run the ball well and play good defense you’re always going to have a chance.”
Niekamp said after Minster scored on its first two drives, the defense adjusted to Nixon and the read option.
“We got our feet underneath us defensively in the second quarter and that made a huge difference,” Niekamp said. The Indians finished with 489 total yards to Minster’s 260. “The more the game went on the more confidence we got defensively.
“That kind of made it tougher for them to run and when they were a little bit more one-dimensional then they got in predictable situations.”
Minster’s lone touchdown in the second half came in the fourth quarter following Homan’s second score. Nixon — he was 16-of-31 for 185 yards and had 34 more on the ground — used both his arms and legs to get the Wildcats down the field. Huelsman capped the six-play, 52-yard drive with a 7-yard score.