Indians have tourney run end

WAPAKONETA, Ohio — Although it had a tough time doing so for most of the game, the Tribe wanted to get the ball to the post.
The Indians passed around the perimeter, each player looking for juniors Micaiah Cox and Caleb Martin in the paint.
Neither were open.
So as time was running out on its season, the Tribe got desperate.
Senior Darien Sheffer had a long, potential game-winning 3-point attempt miss the mark, and the Lima Perry Commodores drained a pair of free throws with 0.6 seconds remaining Tuesday to hold off the Fort Recovery High School boys basketball team for a 57-54 victory in the Division IV district semifinal at Wapakoneta.
“We ran our set to get something down to the low post,” said FRHS coach Chris Guggenbiller, whose team ended its season with a 16-7 record. “They packed it in, they had been packing it in for a good majority of the game. We had a few passes, didn’t get anything too close and then ended up shooting a 25-footer to close the game. From my viewpoint, I kind of thought in the back of my head ‘Oh my God, he’s going to hit this shot.’”
But he didn’t.
For Perry coach Matt Tabler, whose team was the district’s top seed, the game plan was to key on Cox and make sure he had to fight for every basket.
“It didn’t matter if we were in a man defense or a 3-2 defense, we needed to bracket him with two guys,” said Tabler, whose top-seeded Commodore team advances to the district final against St. Henry on Friday. The Redskins defeated Minster 58-48 later Tuesday night.
Cox did the majority of his damage from the free-throw line, going 9-for-10, on his way to a team-high 15 points. He also had 11 rebounds.
Lima Perry (21-3) led 26-24 at half and pushed the lead by one nearly three minutes into the third quarter, but that’s when a 3-point contest broke out.
FRHS junior Matt Bihn — he made all three of his shots from the perimeter and finished with 11 points — made his second triple to tie the score at 29, and the Indians took a two-point lead two possessions later when Martin went coast-to-coast for a layup.
The next time down the court for the No. 3 seed Tribe, Martin — he had 14 points off the bench and was second on the team with six rebounds — swished a trey from the left wing that was quickly answered by Perry’s Plummie Gardner on an assist from Jakoby Harvey. Another Bihn 3-pointer put the Indians on top by two until Gardner responded immediately with his fourth and final basket from behind the arc to put the Commodores again ahead 38-37.
“I think that’s kind of what our game plan was; if they punch us in the mouth let’s go and punch them back,” Tabler said.
Gardner led Perry with 19 points. Orion Monford made three of his four 3-point attempts on his way to 17 points, and Harvey chipped in with 10 points.
While the Commodores were a blistering 10-for-22 from long range, the Indians were just 5-for-20. Fort Recovery seniors Chase Bruns and Sheffer were a combined 1-of-14 from behind the line.
The pace of the game slowed down in the fourth quarter, but the slugfest did not. Perry led by two entering the frame, but Fort Recovery fought back for a 48-46 lead. Perry senior Seth Poling swished a 3-pointer from the left wing with less than 3:30 to play to give Perry the advantage for good.
“I told our guys to play like you have nothing to lose,” Tabler said. “I told them to play loose. If you have a shot, shoot it. We’re not going to have any negativity on bad shots. You have an open shot against a team like this, you can’t go into their interior. We had to be a perimeter-oriented team.”
It didn’t help the Indians either they were 37.8 percent from the field and missed 10 of their 25 free-throw attempts.
“This is probably percentage wise the poorest we’ve shot the ball all year long, both from the line and from the field,” Guggenbiller said. “You have those nights. You have to find ways to overcome that.
“We left plenty of points out there, both close range points, mid range points. We had plenty of open threes we just couldn’t get that shot to fall tonight — that big shot to put us over the hump.”