Knoxville knock out

NEW KNOXVILLE, Ohio — The Rangers threw the first punch in the opening quarter.

The Indians’ haymaker in the second put the game out of reach.

Fort Recovery High School’s boys basketball team scored 16 consecutive points to start the second quarter and cruised to a 46-31 victory over the New Knoxville Rangers in a Midwest Athletic Conference tilt Friday at Ranger Gym.

“We had to ratchet up the pressure a little bit because we were stagnant offensively,” said first-year Fort Recovery coach Jim Melton, whose team improved to 9-3 (2-3 MAC). “They gained some confidence early on.

“I told the guys we were going to have to sustain their first punch because, you know, they’re after their first MAC win so they’re hungry.”

The Rangers (2-11, 0-4 MAC), who have now lost nine straight games, have had a difficult time in that specific period as of late.

“We’ve had a bad second quarter three games in a row now,” NKHS coach Mike Piatt said. “You have to give them a little credit for the pressure but it’s mostly us.

“We’re still young, and when we deviate from what we’re supposed to do bad things happen. When we stay within what we’re supposed to do — pretty effective.”

New Knoxville sophomore forward Carson Bierlein, who entered the game second in the MAC in scoring at 19.3 points per game, registered six points in the first quarter and junior Patrick Covert chipped in four as the Rangers jumped on the Indians 13-8 after eight minutes of play.

But Fort Recovery, which had dropped consecutive MAC games, rifled back to tie the score on a Clay Schmitz jumper from the left elbow and a Derek Jutte 3-pointer from the right wing.

The Rangers committed back-to-back turnovers before Grant Knapke buried a triple — his only points of the game — from the right corner on a Jutte assist to give the Indians the lead for good.

They weren’t done scoring, either.

Schmitz sank a pair of free throws, Cale Rammel hit a jumper from the free-throw line and then Regan Martin scored two fast-break layups on New Knoxville turnovers, a stretch during which the Rangers gave up the ball on four of five possessions.

“Offensively we’re pretty efficient,” Piatt said. The Rangers were 13-of-27 (48.1 percent) when they were able to break through the full- and half-court pressure from the Indians. “We’re going to play a little slower paced to do things, but we cannot give them the ball. We did that in the second quarter and it haunted us.”

Trailing 28-15 at half, the Rangers managed to claw their way back into the game before having momentum kicked out from under them.

Bierlein scored all five points for NKHS in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter, and after a lull during which neither team was able to find the bottom of the hoop, Bierlein came down awkwardly after a 3-point attempt and had to leave the game with three minutes to play.

His injury thwarted any chance the Rangers had to trim the margin any further. The Indians outscored the Rangers 8-2 the rest of the way.

“It hurt us because he’s our leading scorer (and the) second-leading scorer in the league and we run a lot of stuff through him,” Piatt said. “That hurt us, but the game was really lost in the second quarter. We put ourselves in that hole. We have to grow from that and learn from that.”

Bierlein exited the game with a team-high 15 points, and Max Henschen was second for the Rangers with eight points.

Schmitz, a FRHS junior, finished with a hard-earned 18 points to go with his five rebounds, both of which were game highs. Jutte, who was 7-of-7 from the field and whose only miss came from the stripe, was second with a career-high 15 points.

“I’ve been waiting to see him come out of his shell a little bit,” Melton said. “We know what we’re getting out of the other guys … It was pleasant to see Derek play that way tonight. That’s the Derek Jutte I’ve been seeing in the summer and in the fall.”