’Cats hands FR 1st defeat

FORT RECOVERY — The Indians’ offense looked like an unstoppable machine early Friday.
Two drives, two touchdowns. The only real hiccups had come on a missed extra point and a failed two-point conversion attempt.
On the third possession, the Tribe marched down the field again. But it was unable to convert on a fourth-and-3 deep in Minster territory, and the machine began to sputter.
Division VII No. 7 Minster took the lead on the opening drive of the second half and held fourth-ranked Fort Recovery scoreless over the final three quarters as the Indians suffered their first loss of the season, 14-12.
The fourth-down stop for Minster (5-2, 3-2 Midwest Athletic Conference) turned the tide.
After tackling FRHS quarterback Caleb Martin on a roll-out, the Wildcats went to work on offense. A 41-yard pass from Josh Nixon to Jacob Dues lit the spark, and four plays later Evan Huelsman ripped off a 21-yard run to push the ball to the Fort Recovery 18-yard line.
The two big plays led to a Huelsman 3-yard scoring run, and Jason Schultz’s extra point pulled his team to within five.
Neither offense was able to do much for the rest of the half, but Minster came out of the intermission ready.
After back-to-back incompletions, Nixon kept the ball for a 13-yard run on a key third down. The Wildcats later drew a pass interference call, and then Nixon completed the nine-play scoring drive by hitting Dues with a 22-yard touchdown pass at the 9:47 mark of the third quarter for a 14-12 lead.
Nixon tossed for 149 yards, 103 of which went to Dues on five completions, and Huelsman had 119 on the ground.
Fort Recovery’s offense, which had been so potent at the beginning, went three-and-out on its next drive, a harbinger of things to come.
The Indians (6-1, 4-1 MAC) never reached the red zone again. After gaining 194 yards on their first three drives, they were limited to 104 on their final six.
The final Tribe drive ended with an interception on a third-and-23 play from its own 11-yard line.
Friday’s loss put a halft to the best start in Fort Recovery football history — six consecutive wins — for a program that had never won more than three games in a row to open a season. It was a huge victory for the Wildcats, who had already suffered MAC losses to Division VI No. 1 Marion Local and Division V No. 1 Coldwater.
Fort Recovery seemed as if it might be headed for a convincing win over the 2015 Division VI state champions after it got an opening kickoff return to the 44-yard line from Kyle Schroer and then cruised down the field. Schroer had a run for 18 yards and Martin completed a pass to Wes Wenning for 19 before Schroer finished off the opening drive with a 2-yard TD run.
It was more of the same on the second drive as the Indians zipped 76 yards in seven plays with Will Homan spinning off several tackles on the drive-capping 9-yard TD run.
Martin was 17-for-24 for 114 yards in the loss, with Wes Wenning catching eight passes for 67 yards. Schroer and Homan ran for 82 and 81 yards respectively.
Jason Roessner paced the Tribe with 13 tackles, including two for losses.
Fort Recovery will go on the road for its next game to take on Marion Local, which also suffered its first loss Friday. In a battle of undefeated squads, the Flyers fell 17-14 to Coldwater.