Career highs and firsts

FORT RECOVERY — Karlie Niekamp gave the Tribe and its fans plenty to be excited about.

But the senior got the loudest when a freshman got her moment and made the most of it.

Niekamp scored a career-high 28 points on Monday, but found another level of excitement when Scarlet Hiser scored her first varsity basket in the closing minute of the Fort Recovery High School girls basketball team’s 64-17 whooping of the South Adams Starfires.

The game against the Starfires (3-17) was originally scheduled for Jan. 21, but was rescheduled due to inclement weather. 

The Indians (10-9) wasted no time getting ahead of South Adams, allowing coach Tyler Deitsch to extend his bench and get everyone in by the end of the game. As a result, freshmen Kendall Ranly and Scarlet Hiser scored their first career buckets, the former on a 3-pointer with 2 minutes, 30 seconds left and the latter on a wide open layup off of a press break with less than a minute to go.

“I’m happy with the way we came out and played and proud of our girls for executing what we talked about,” Deitsch said. “It’s good for everybody to get a chance to get in and try to contribute. … Being able to get out there and build confidence is big for those girls. And being able to get everybody in is always a good sign for your team.

“It just helps with team morale. I think everybody was more excited for Scarlett to score than she was herself, which just kind of shows how our girls relate and feel about each other.”

To get there, Fort Recovery got a career-performance out of its senior forward. Niekamp hit a new scoring high by putting up 28 points on 12-of-16 (75%) from the field to outpace the Starfires herself. South Adams couldn’t find a way to slow down the 5-foot, 11-inch Indian, as she found ways to score with her back to the basket, off of 10-foot pull ups, drives to the rim, two free throws and a pair of triples.

Niekamp also pulled down a game-high 15 rebounds and led all players with five assists. All five of those assists came in transition opportunities, in which Niekamp stole the ball before passing it ahead or sucked in a rebound and pushed the pace before finding a teammate.

“I was just playing my game and being opportunistic,” Niekamp said. “I was just able to get those rebounds and then my teammates were turning up the sidelines, so I could pass up to them. We work on that in practice and that was like our picture-perfect transition, so it just worked out well tonight."

    Fort Recovery High School’s Cameron Muhlenkamp dives on the floor to swipe the ball away from Ana Lehman of South Adams during Monday’s 64-17 victory. The Indians’ defense forced South Adams to commit 28 turnovers, leading to transition opportunities. (The Commercial Review/Andrew Balko)

Along with the Indians manufacturing transition opportunities with Niekamp ripping down rebounds and running, they turned SAHS over to create offense.

Fort Recovery ran a 1-2-2 full-court press that featured Kennedy Muhlenkamp at the top, Cameron Muhlenkamp and Niekamp as the next in line and Makenna Huelskamp and Emma Schmitz – starter Bridget Homan missed the game with an illness – protecting the back line. As a result, the Indians forced 28 turnovers, including 15 in the first quarter alone.

“We’re trying to turn our defensive pressure into easy offensive opportunities,” Dietsch said. “We were struggling to score earlier in the season. Being able to add these presses in has really helped turn that around and it’s when we play our best.”

The zone defenses (FRHS eventually backed off the press in the second quarter but kept an aggressive half-court zone defense on) held the Starfires to just two made field goals in the first half. The first a turnaround jump shot by Ana Lehman with three seconds remaining in the first quarter. Kenley Geels made the second shot off an offensive rebound at the 1:59 mark in the half.

Fort Recovery snuffed out the Starfires’ offense in the third period as well, only giving up one point on a free throw. Lehman hit a three from the right corner early in the fourth to reach eight points, and the Indians pulled their starters with six minutes remaining, allowing SAHS to finish on a 9-5 run. In all, Fort Recovery held the Starfires to 17.6% (6-34) from the field, while it shot 56.5% (26-46).

Lehman led South Adams with 14 points. Kennedy Muhlenkamp beat that mark with 15 points on 6-of-9 (66.7%) shooting.

Huelskamp also reached double figures, bouncing back from a rough stretch over the past month. The sophomore hadn’t scored more than six points since Dec. 23 when she put up 16. On Friday, Huelskamp scored 12 points on a pair of triples and three hoops at the rim. She went on a personal 5-0 spurt in the second quarter – it came amid a 13-0 Indian run – by hitting a 3-pointer on a pass back from Schmitz and then tipped up an offensive rebound from a transition opportunity.

She then scored seven points over the span of three minutes in the third quarter. It started with Niekamp finding Huelskamp in the right corner for a three. On the next possession, the sophomore guard set up shop in the same corner, received a skip pass from Cameron Muhlenkamp and drove past a closing-out Lucy Schwartz for an open layup. She hit her last shot in transition off a Niekamp assist.

“This definitely helped my confidence,” Huelskamp said. “My teammates really just drew the defense in and they got it out to me to help me get easy shots.”