No. 2 ’Cats end FR’s season

MINSTER, Ohio — The season is over.

Fort Recovery High School’s football team fell behind by 21 in the first quarter Friday night, quickly erasing any hope of an upset to get a playoff berth in a 49-7 loss to the Division VII No. 2 Minster Wildcats.

The loss marked the end of the season as the Indians (2-8, 1-7 Midwest Athletic Conference) will finish outside of the top 16 in Division VII Region 28 and miss the playoffs for the second consecutive season.

Minster (8-2, 6-2 MAC) drove 65 yards in six plays on its first possession, with Brogan Stephy tossing a 28-yard touchdown pass to James Niemeyer less than three minutes into the game. The Wildcats added two more TDs in the final four minutes of the first period, with Connor Schmiesing running in a 1-yard score and Stephy hitting Caleb Clouse with a 25-yard pass.

Fort Recovery was unable to do much to slow the Wildcats, who racked up 484 yards of offense with Stephy connecting on 12 of 17 passes for 274 yards — an average of nearly 23 yards per completion. Stephy added two more TD passes in the second quarter — 18 yards to Clouse and 76 yards to Dylan Heitkamp.

Minster extended its lead to 49-0 before Isaac Roessner tallied the lone touchdown for the Indians on a 41-yard run with two minutes remaining.

Heitkamp caught a third of Stephey’s completed passes for 124 yards. Chase Bishop led the Wildcats with 78 rushing yards and two TDs on just four attempts.

Reece Wendel generated about half of the yardage for Fort Recovery, running 22 times for 73 yards.

Wendel totaled six tackles for the Indians while Gavin Evers and Brodie Hart each had five. Caden Grisez notched an interception.

FRHS has had eight consecutive losing seasons since going 7-4 in 2016. (It won the Division VII state championship in 2015.)