Four-minute falter

TROY, Ohio — Seven times this season, the Indians lost by seven points or fewer.

Again and again, it was short stretches that held them back.

With the first trip to the regional in 14 years on the line, one more dry spell left them short.

Fort Recovery went scoreless for the final four minutes of the third quarter Saturday as its season ended with a 67-59 loss to the second-seeded Anna Rockets in the OHSAA Division VI Southwest 1 District championship game at Troy.

“I thought we were playing pretty good,” said FRHS coach Bob Levertte, whose team was seeded sixth. “We were hanging around, keeping it under 10.  … The goal was to keep it close and see what happened at the end. …

“It got a little more physical. That's kind of when they got the lead on us, and then made their free throws down the stretch.”

The win sends Anna (15-10) to Tuesday’s regional semifinal to play No. 9 Tri-Village (23-2) at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Vandalia Bulter. The Patriots topped Cincinnati Country Day 62-57 in Saturday’s second district title game at Troy. 

No. 1 Marion Local (23-2) and Cincinnati Miami Valley Christian Academy (20-5) will play in the other regional semifinal at 6 p.m.

Despite some turnover issues in the first quarter and missed free throws early in the third, the Indians (8-17) trailed by just three after a Gavin Evers block of an Evan Myers shot led to his second-chance hoop on the other end. It capped a 7-0 run that triggered an Anna timeout.

The Rockets proceeded to close the quarter with 10 consecutive points, including four each from Jacob Feroze and Myers.

Anna shot 7-of-12 from the field in the third quarter while the Indians were 3-of-10.

“They finished with physicality on their end and we didn’t,” said Leverette, reflecting on that four-minute stretch. “That was the difference. … We got to where we wanted to and we just didn’t finish at the rim.”

Anna extended its lead to 15 in the fourth quarter before the Indians began fouling in an effort to extend the game. It did them no good, as the Rockets buried a dozen consecutive free throws in a span of two minutes, 10 seconds.

Rhylan Platfood hit four of those foul shots as he shared the Anna high of 15 points with Myers. Feroze added two free throws late as he finished 6-of-6 at the line en route to 11 points. And Alex Shappie — he had a team-best eight rebounds — hit the other six foul shots during the stretch as he, Brady Wenning and Kyle Edelmann all contributed eight points.

“We were trying to figure out ways to get (Shappie) the ball back,” said Anna coach Nate Barhorst, whose Rockets scored 14 of their 17 fourth-quarter points at the line. “Our bigs have been shooting free throws great down the stretch, so it was good to see that we were able to seal the deal late in the game.”

The strong finish to the third quarter and the free throws in the fourth allowed the Rockets to overcome a big game from Briggs Overman, who led all scorers with 25 points.

Breaker Jutte followed with a dozen points, Brody Barga had 10 to go along with his 11 rebounds before fouling out with 1:54 let and Evers scored nine.

Fort Recovery never led in the game as it had five first-quarter turnovers, including on its first two possessions.

“We had five turnovers to start the game, and they hit threes out of that,” said Leverette. “So we’re playing behind.”

The Indians also missed opportunities to close the gap further when it split free throws three times in the first two minutes of the third quarter.

Despite the season coming to a close, Leverette said he felt good about the pair of tournament wins for his team — the Indians beat Houston 59-50 and Riverside 45-37 to reach the district championship game — after it dropped nine in a row at one point and ended the regular season with three consecutive losses.

“We’re young,” he said, noting that the team has just two seniors in Overman and Evers. “We battled throughout the season. We kept telling them just to keep believing, good things were going to happen. This was one of our goals when we started the season. … And they bought into that.”