Tribe falls to ’Cats

MINSTER, Ohio — The Midwest Athletic Conference’s two highest-scoring teams met on the court Thursday night.

The top team did its thing. The other, well, didn’t.

Fort Recovery High School’s girls basketball team struggled to score and wasn’t able to keep the Minster Wildcats at bay in a 58-27 loss.

The Indians dipped to 13-5 (6-3 MAC) and had their hopes of back-to-back conference championships come to an end. Minster, which won state titles in both 2018 and 2019 and is currently ranked fourth in Division IV, moved to 18-1 (8-0 MAC).

The Wildcats, who were averaging just north of 57 points per game, jumped out to a 24-4 lead at the end of the first quarter thanks to a 10-point effort by future Miami (Ohio) RedHawk Ivy Wolf.

Fort Recovery, which was averaging 51.4 points, got the offense going a bit in the second quarter but still trailed 35-14 at halftime.

Minster opened a 48-21 advantage with one quarter to play.

Wolf, who is second in the MAC in scoring at 19.8 points per game, led all players with 20 points.

Alli Vaughn scored nine points, three fewer than her per-game average, for the Indians, and Whitley Rammel contributed eight points.

Fort Recovery’s junior varsity team also lost, 61-23. Kensey Gaerke and Mara Pearson had six points each for the Tribe.