Streak ends at five

MINSTER, Ohio — No matter how many times the Indians tried to pull away, the Wildcats came firing right back.

Ten straight points put the Tribe out front by seven early in the second quarter, but a Wildcat surge tied the score at the half.

Then, after the Indians had a lead again in the third, the Wildcats simply would not go away.

And when the Tribe fell behind a little bit later, it never got back over the hump.

The Fort Recovery High School boys basketball team held a lead on four separate occasions, but after falling behind midway through the third quarter it never claimed the advantage again as it came up short in a 52-50 loss to the Minster Wildcats on Friday.

“It’s a good test of character,” first-year Fort Recovery coach Jim Melton said. “Hopefully our team galvanizes from this. I always say, an ‘L’ is not a loss, it’s a learning process and that’s what we’re going to do from this.

“We’ll learn from it, we’ll grow and mature as young men and become a better team, hopefully.”

Fort Recovery, which had won its previous five games, fell to 6-2 overall and 1-2 in the Midwest Athletic Conference, while Minster (8-1, 1-1 MAC) won its fourth consecutive game.

“I thought our kids, start to finish, every single kid that was in and had an opportunity to be in played really hard,” said Minster coach Michael McClurg. “That was kind of what pulled it out. We just grinded that one out. It definitely wasn’t pretty.”

Minster led 11-8 at the end of a rather sloppy first quarter, but Fort Recovery’s Regan Martin and Brian Bihn swung the game in favor of the Indians.

Martin hit a 3-pointer from the right corner, and Grant Knapke fed Bihn in the post for two points. Two possessions later, Bihn put back his own miss for a basket, and Martin followed with another triple — this time from the opposite corner — to make it 18-11 Indians.

Martin scored all 11 of his points in the second period, and Bihn finished with 10 for the Indians.

What Melton described as mental breakdowns for the rest of the period allowed Minster to claw its way back for the first time as Trent Roetgerman tied the game at 26 in the final minute of the opening half.

Midway through the third quarter, Fort Recovery held a 34-31 lead only to have Minster later go out front 39-36.

Grant Knapke, who led the Indians with 14 points, came off a screen to drain a game-tying 3-pointer from the left wing, but Jacob Salazar matched it to break the deadlock.

Fort Recovery was never able to pull ahead again.

Even at 48 with 1:42 remaining, Justin Nixon put the Wildcats in front by two and then assisted on two Roetgerman insurance points.

“Justin was pretty good one-on-one when we needed him to be and that’s kind of what we leaned on,” McClurg said.

The Indians had a chance to pull within one after Clay Schmitz was sent to the line to complete an old-fashioned three-point play with 9.3 seconds remaining, but his free throw was off the mark. Eric Schmidt tracked down the loose ball in the corner and McClurg called timeout with 5.7 ticks remaining to all but seal the streak-continuing victory.

“We knew there was a chance he could miss because he only had one (free throw already),” McClurg said. “We knew we had to check out. They got a hand on it, whether it was over the back I don’t know, but then it goes to the corner and we put it to our chin.

“Thank god we got a timeout.”

Said Melton: “Hats off to Minster. They made some plays down the stretch that counted.”

Nixon led all players with 16 points, including a pair of third-quarter 3-pointers, which Melton said he wasn’t expecting out of the 6-foot, 4-inch senior forward.

Roetgerman tossed in 10 points to give the Wildcats a trio of players in double figures.