Indians roll in tourney opener

ST. MARYS, Ohio — This time, the Indians had a battle in the opening quarter.

Once their size, strength and defense took over, the result ended up virtually the same.

Fort Recovery High School’s boys basketball team went on a 27-3 run spanning halftime Tuesday night as it clobbered New Knoxville for the second time in 12 days, winning 57-30 over the Rangers in the opening round of the Division IV sectional tournament at Memorial.

“You know, I'm just proud of the guys that took care of business,” said FRHS coach Bob Leverette, whose team beat New Knoxville 56-29 in their regular-season meeting Feb. 10. “We weren’t going to do much — pressure a little bit up to court to get some steals, but, you know, just good solid man-to-man defense, and hopefully just take care of business, get a shot at Friday.”

The Indians, who are the No. 5 seed in the district, advance to play for a sectional championship Friday against third-seeded Upper Scioto Valley. They will be looking for their first sectional championship since winning three in a row from 2016 through 2018.

The FRHS sectional title game will start at approximately 7:30 p.m., following a championship game between No. 1 seed Marion Local and No. 8 seed Ada.

In the first meeting with New Knoxville (2-20), the Indians (14-9) had a 17-6 lead at the end of the first quarter and never looked back. On Tuesday, they trailed 7-2 early, were up just 14-12 at the quarter break and found themselves tied after Troy Dwenger hit a couple of free throws to open the second quarter.

Then, they came alive.

Fort Recovery scored the next 13 points in a row, while holding the Rangers scoreless for nearly five minutes.

Dwenger hit a 3-pointer at the 2:33 mark of the second quarter to pull his team back to within 10, only to have the Tribe tally the final seven of the first half of the first seven of the second half to complete their run.

“I told the guys coming in, ‘Be ready,’” said Leverette. “They’re gonna come out scrappy as all get out. They’re the best percentage 3-point shooting team in the MAC and they had a couple threes early because we didn't get out, kind of slow on a rotation. So kudos to them; they were ready to go.

“Luckily we responded to it.”

Senior Cale Rammel had 10 of his game-high 22 points during the FRHS run that started with consecutive Alex Dues hoops. He also had four blocks.

Daniel Patch joined Rammel in double figures with 11 points for the Indians, who led by at least 19 for the rest of the game.

Size and strength won out, with Fort Recovery posting a 39-20 advantage on the glass — Rex Leverette finished with a game-high 10 boards to go along with his six points — consistently finding its way into the paint to score and recording six blocks.

Dwenger’s dozen points were the team-high for New Knoxville.

Upper Scioto Valley, which got a bye in the first round, is 16-6 and had a perfect record to win the Northwest Central Conference.

Analyzing the sectional championship match-up, Leverette said the Rams use a 2-1-2, full-court trapping press that can be confusing and will also implement a 1-3-1 press at times. In the half court, they focus on basic man-to-man defense.

As for his own defense, the first-year coach said the Indians will have to improve their focus to slow down USV’s top two scorers.

“We're gonna have to play a lot better defense than that,” he said. “(Alex) Sanders and (Drew) Stephens are really good. They both average 16 a game. … We’re gonna have to flat out defend.

“They run a lot of sets. Are we going to stay engaged with our switching defense in order to get through some of those sets and stuff? That's my, that's gonna be my concern.”