Tall task

FORT RECOVERY — On Friday, the Indians scored a season-high 24 first-half points. A little less than 24 hours later, the Tribe matched that mark in the first quarter alone.

Another 19 in the second period put the game out of reach for the Tigers.

One day after picking up its first win, the Fort Recovery High School boys basketball team exploded for 43 first-half points en route to an 82-50 victory over the Ansonia Tigers on Saturday.

The Indians (2-3) dropped its first three games of the season, all of which were on the road, while averaging 48.3 points per game. They got into the victory column after their first home game Friday against the Panthers before building upon it with the offensive domination of Ansonia (0-7).

“In these two games we’ve shot the ball well and obviously we should shoot the ball better at home,” said FRHS coach Bob Leverette. “We’re starting to get some games under our belt here. We were stuck on three for a while and we’re starting to get a little bit of a flow and the guys are playing confident.”

The Indians had particular success around the rim, with 26 of their 34 field goals (76.5%) coming within 10 feet of the hoop.

FRHS sophomore Breaker Jutte had a career day, scoring 23 points on 10-of-15 shooting (66.7%). This is the third time Jutte has scored in double digits, with 16 in the season opener at Jay County and then 10 against Parkway.

All of Jutte’s baskets came in the paint, with five coming as the result of offensive rebounds and four coming from assists.

“Well obviously we had a little bit of a size advantage,” said Jutte, who is listed at 6 feet, 5 inches. “It’s just about crashing the boards and getting those rebounds and put backs. … And my teammates set me up pretty well. They got me the ball down low and we were just running good offense.”

The height advantage — Ansonia only has one player taller than 6 foot, 1 inch — not only helped Fort Recovery’s shooting percentage, but also their rebounding. The Tribe dominated the glass, pulling down 46 rebounds, while the Tigers grabbed 18.

The Indians had more offensive rebounds at 20 than Ansonia had defensive boards at 16 (0.444 defensive rebounding percentage). Those offensive rebounds led to 17 second-chance points. The Tigers only successfully hit the offensive glass twice as Fort Recovery sucked up 26 defensive boards for a .929 defensive rebounding percentage.

Brody Barga, another 6 foot, 5 inch, forward, led FRHS with nine rebounds, while Jutte followed with eight and Briggs Overman added seven.

Along with the Indians’ size advantage, transition basketball played a key role in the game.

Fort Recovery looked to play fast, taking advantage of every missed shot to push the pace and even grabbing the ball out of the net on made shots to quickly inbound the ball and get down the floor.

FRHS also forced Ansonia to commit 16 turnovers (double the amount of times the Indians coughed up the ball), including 11 times in the first half to create transition opportunities.

“That’s the pace we want to use this year,” Leverette said. “It will be interesting to see how it will translate into the MAC season, if we can run with teams and keep this pace. … We knew they were kind of limited skill wise, so we wanted to get into them and pressure them man-to-man. We didn’t really use our press at all, so just good man-to-man pressure.”

Outside of Jutte’s 23 points, Overman and Grant Fortkamp both broke double-digit scoring with 15 and 12 points, respectively. Barga and Gavin Evers both finished just one basket away as well, totalling eight points each.

Graham Coppess led the Tigers with 14 points, with Bennett Lehman adding 11.

The Tribe will carry the back-to-back wins into the Christmas break before hosting South Adams on Friday before jumping straight into the Ohio 119 Classic with Marion Local on Dec. 28 and St. Henry on Dec. 30.

“After winning against Parkway, we just love that feeling of winning now,” said Jutte. “So going into today, we were like ‘We’re going to get another dub, keep winning and keep the streak going.’ Getting two wins going into the Christmas break is nice.”