Threes company

FORT RECOVERY — To say the Indians got shot out of their own gym doesn’t give the Wildcats enough credit.

The visitors were 61 percent close to the hoop. They were even better from beyond the arc — on 20 attempts from long range.

Fort Recovery High School’s boys basketball team struggled to guard the perimeter and to make baskets at the other end in a 78-47 defeat to the Minster Wildcats on Friday at Fort Site Fieldhouse.

“We couldn’t close out on shooters,” said FRHS coach Michael Bashore, whose team falls to 5-3 on the year and 1-2 in Midwest Athletic Conference play. Minster, meanwhile, improved to 5-3 (1-1 MAC) after picking up its first conference win.

“Half of them were just wide open looks,” Bashore continued. “We worried a little too much early on about (Jaron Schulze) inside, for good reason.”

Schulze got his, finishing with a game-high 18 points. He was 8-for-11 from the field and made both of his free throws.

But it was the Wildcats’ ability to get open from distance and be accurate as they took those shots that hurt Fort Recovery the most.

“We have a lot of guys that can shoot, we do,” said Minster coach Michael McClung. “What I think, they are catching them in rhythm. They’re not forcing. They’re not shooting them off the dribble because our big guys are drawing so much attention.”

Minster was 7-of-10 from 3-point land in each half.

Mike Ketner (14 points) did the most damage, going 4-of-6 from the perimeter. His first was part of a 13-0 run in the first quarter during which Jack Heitbrink (3-of-4) scored eight straight, including consecutive treys. Minster was ahead 13-3 at that point after Fort Recovery junior Grant Knapke’s 3-pointer began the scoring on the game’s first possession.

Heitbrink was second for the Wildcats with 15 points.

Noah Enneking (11 points) also made three of his four shots from distance, including a buzzer beater from near the volleyball line before halftime.

Jacob Salazar came off the bench and sank a trio of second-half 3-pointers.

“There’s nothing special we do,” McClung said. “We shoot just as much in practice as anybody else. We had three games where we shot it really bad. You have games where you shoot it well and you have game where you shoot it bad. But you have got to make sure that when you don’t shoot it well you can still become victorious.”

Schulze, a 6-foot, 9-inch senior, had a personal 6-0 run in the second quarter to cap a streak of 11 straight points for the Wildcats to begin the period after leading 21-15 at the end of the first eight minutes.

Fort Recovery, which hits the road to take on the Lincolnview Lancers tonight, trailed 39-21 at half ahead of a 10-0 stretch to trim the margin to eight points with 4:45 remaining in the third quarter. Payton Jutte, who led the Indians with 11 points, hit consecutive triples to start the Tribe’s run.

Three more 3-pointers and a pair of Schulze free throws pushed the Wildcat advantage to 22 points and the Indians, who finished 20-of-57 (35.1 percent) for the game, never recovered.

“We got some good looks in those stretches, we just can’t buy a bucket at times,” Bashore said. “We’re not good enough defensively to go through long droughts where we can’t score.

“That’s what happened to us tonight.”



Junior varsity

Fort Recovery was ahead by five or more points at the end of each quarter and hung on for a 44-40 win.

The Indians (8-1) were out front 10-4 after the first period and led 22-17 at half. Both offenses came alive to combine for 33 points in the third quarter, but the Tribe kept its lead with a 17-16 advantage in scoring for a 39-33 lead heading into the final period.

Brian Bihn led the Indians with 12 points, and Ian Homan contributed nine points. Gavin Thobe chipped in eight points while Regan Martin finished with six points.