Indians beat New Knoxville to stay perfect

Twenty-five years ago this week, the Indians were celebrating another victory.

The Dec. 16, 2000, edition of The Commercial Review featured coverage of the Fort Recovery boys basketball team’s 79-58 victory over the visiting New Knoxville Rangers.

After a two-week break, the Indians dominated the second quarter in their return to the court and then held off a fourth-quarter comeback try by New Knoxville (2-2) to improve to 3-0 and win their Midwest Athletic Conference opener.

“You just don’t know with a young team how (the layoff) is going to affect us,” said FRHS coach Joe Bruns. “But the effort was there. I was very pleased … we played our hearts out.”

Fort Recovery was in good position already after holding the Rangers to seven points in the opening period. It blew the game open in the second quarter to carry an 18-point lead into halftime.

Senior guard Jon Kaup paced the effort for the Indians with a career-high 22 points. He did all of his scoring from the field, including hitting a pair of 3-pointers.

Kaup’s play typified the Indians’ aggressive offense as he attacked the basket all night.

“The first two games he didn’t score a lot, but Jon’s going to take what the defense gives him,” said Bruns. “He’s a leader. He’s one of our senior leaders and we needed him tonight and he came up big for us.”

Sophomore Greg Snyder followed with 13 points, and senior Tony Stammen added 11. Tyler Niekamp and Nick Dilworth added nine and eight points respectively for Fort Recovery, which lost its top returning player Ross Wendel to a knee injury before the season.

“I knew (going 3-0) was possible … playing at home in front of our fans helps, but we’ve got a long way to go,” said Bruns. “I’m very pleased with the 3-0 start, and we just need to continue to improve.”