Struggles in the second

FORT RECOVERY — A rough second quarter put the Tribe behind the eight ball.

The Indian seniors refused to give up easily and despite getting the game within six points, the deficit was too much to overcome.

The Fort Recovery High School girls basketball team suffered a 53-36 loss to St. Henry in the Ohio 119 Classic on Monday after a poor second quarter that had the Indians outscored 20-4.

“That’s been a problem for us this year, where we have a quarter a game where we get kind of stagnant,” said FRHS coach Tyler Deitsch. “Whether it’s giving up a lot of points or not scoring a lot of points. Tonight it was both. I mean, 20-4 in the second quarter, that’s really the difference in the game right there.

“Got down really big. Had to turn up the pressure in the second half. Fought all the way back and got it down to six, with not a really deep bench. Just super proud of the way the girls fight through and play tough.”

Fort Recovery (4-8) got out to an 11-10 lead over St. Henry (9-1) at the quarter break with a pair of baskets from Kennedy Muhlenkamp and Bridget Homan and a Makenna Huelskamp three.

SHHS opened the second quarter with 15 unanswered points. In the six-bucket stretch, four of the St. Henry scores came from an assist, one was the result of a Leah Lefeld offensive rebound and the other was a left-handed drive by Morgan Baumer as the Indians forced the junior guard to her off hand.

FRHS finally ended the drought with a Homan hoop with 3 minutes, 20 seconds, remaining in the period. Homan had the only other Tribe basket on a third-chance attempt, while St. Henry scored on a baseline-out-of-bounds play that benefited Lefeld and a Baumer triple. SHHS took a 30-15 lead into the intermission.

Fort Recovery turned the ball over on 46.7% of their possessions in the second quarter as it coughed it up seven times and only had eight possessions end with a shot attempt or a defensive foul.

“We talked about our energy and we’ve had a couple of starts that haven’t been as fast as we would like,” said SHHS coach Nate Uhlenhake. “It wasn’t a great start, but I thought in the second quarter we stepped up. We tried to set the tone with our defense and try to help lead that into our offense and get some better looks.”

The Indians made a significant dent into St. Henry’s 18-point advantage over the final four minutes of the third quarter. Down 39-21, Muhlenkamp and Karlie Niekamp put together an 8-0 Tribe run with four baskets that came from the paint. Fort Recovery got four more points to start the final period with Niekamp and Homan each hitting a pair of free throws.

“That talks a lot about their leadership and being able to do what they need for the team,” said Deitsch. “They put a lot of pressure on (Muhlenkamp) and she still found easy to score or get her teammates involved. Karlie is such a competitor. You know what you’re going to get out of her each and every day and there’s no quit.”

Muhlenkamp ended as the Indians' leading scorer with 12 points, while Niekamp and Homan followed with 10 apiece. SHHS also had three players reach double digits, with Baumer putting up 15, Alexis Buschur scoring 12 and Lefeld adding 10.

St. Henry worked back up to a 10-point lead with baskets by Burschur, Lauren Thieman and Lefeld. Over the final three minutes, SHHS padded their advantage with another left-handed drive by Baumer and five bonus free throws.

There was a sizable disparity in the assist column, as St. Henry made 10 shots as the result of sharing the ball, while Fort Recovery only made two. Huelskamp and Muhlenkamp had the assists for FHRS, while Lauren Thieman had a game-high four.