Schlechty shot lifts Jay past FR

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Time ticking away, Ryan Schlechty took the ball from the top of the key toward the right corner with the rest of his teammates on the left side of the court.

He got blanketed by a pair of Indians and was stopped in his tracks.

Michael Schlechty cut from the left toward the right block, and Ryan got a pass through the Tribe defenders to his twin brother.

Like he had done all game from close range, Michael Schlechty didn’t miss.

Schlechty’s basket with 2.3 seconds remaining gave the Jay County High School boys basketball team a 53-51 lead and a turnover on the ensuing inbound pass sealed the Patriots’ victory over the state-line rival Fort Recovery Indians on Saturday.

“The ball is in our two best players’ hands,” said JCHS coach Chris Krieg, who said the primary play was to have Ryan Schlechty try to cut toward the corner, but since he was double-teamed he had to dish it off to his brother. “We’re either going to win or go to overtime. I wanted the last shot. I didn’t want them to have an opportunity to get a shot up.”

In 18 meetings all time between Jay County and Fort Recovery, 10 have been decided by one possession and nine have been by two points or fewer.

Fort Recovery coach Michael Bashore said that when Krieg called a timeout with 17.3 seconds left to set up the eventual game-winning shot, his plan was to not let Michael Schlechty or any other Patriot beat them on a back-door cut. It was a play that torched the Indians (1-2) for most of the first half.

“We got stuck behind the big guys and (Schlechty) got a clean look at it,” said Bashore.

Schlechty made all nine of his shots from in front of the 3-point line as he finished with a career-high 19 points in doing his best effort to keep up with Fort Recovery’s Payton Jutte who had led all players with 26 points.

Consecutive Jutte 3-pointers — he finished 5-of-8 from long range — in the third quarter tied the game at 40-all, but a fast-break Parker Grimes layup and a jumper from Ryan Schlechty on the final two possessions of the period made it 44-40 heading to the fourth.

After the Patriots pushed the score to 48-42 early in the fourth, Jutte scored five straight on a pair of free throws and his final 3-pointer of the night with 5:30 to play. Nearly a minute later a Clay Schmitz basket tied the game again, and the teams battled for points the final five minutes of the game.

Approaching the final minute, Jutte drove toward the hoop from the right wing and as he attempted to lay it in he was whistled for a charge, his fifth foul.

“That definitely put us in a bind because then (Jay County) could focus their attention on Grant (Knapke),” Bashore said. Knapke finished with 11 points, Blayne Tobe totaled eight and Schmitz finished with six.

And after Schlechty’s eventual game-winning basket, Bashore used a timeout to draw up the inbound play. Knapke led a streaking Schmitz a little too far and the ball went out of bounds near the Fort Recovery bench.

“We put ourselves in bad situations,” Bashore said. “You’re not going to win too many games when those things happen.”

Eight of Schlechty’s points came in the second quarter as Jay County turned a 16-15 lead into a seven-point cushion, 34-27, at halftime.

Baskets from Wyatt Geesaman and Schlechty to start the third quarter opened a 11-point lead before the Indians started to come back.

Fort Recovery went on a 13-2 run that lasted almost six minutes, but they were never able to get back out front.

“Tonight they wanted to make a statement,” Krieg said of his team, which was disappointed in the way it played a week earlier despite beating Woodlan. “We laid an egg last weekend.

“We needed to beat someone really good. I’m going to rank Fort Recovery in the top five that we play this year. It was a huge win for us.”



Junior varsity

Brayden Mock couldn’t have picked a better time for his first points of the game as the junior hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 2:10 remaining as Jay County defeated Fort Recovery, 44-41.

Mock’s triple made it 38-35 as the Patriots (3-2) completed the comeback after being outscored 14-0 to start the game.

Jay County went into halftime trailing 23-17 before cutting the deficit to just three points, 33-30, with one quarter to play. Fort Recovery (2-1) never got the lead back after Mock’s basket.

The Patriots’ Landon Grimes led all players with 17 points. Ethan Dirksen and Gavin Muhlenkamp had 12 and 10 points respectively.

Ryne Post led Fort Recovery with 12 points, Brian Bihn had 11 and Regan Martin recorded eight points.