Tribe needs belief

FORT RECOVERY — The Tribe has quite a tall task in front of it.

The Flyers have the most decorated resume over the past half decade and sit atop the Division VII rankings.

The biggest key for the Indians to pull off the upset is simply believing they have the ability to do it.

The 10th-ranked, No. 12 seed Fort Recovery High School football team will travel to Maria Stein on Friday to take on No. 1 Marion Local in the OHSAA Division VII Region 28 semifinal.

“We have a really great football team on a really long streak that I think everybody knows about (ahead of us),” said coach Wes Wenning. “But it’s a tremendous opportunity. That’s what we’re hammering to our players. Step one is just believing. Believing in our system, believing in our coaching staff, believing in everything that we’re setting in place for Friday night. And then from there, you play the game for a reason, so a tremendous opportunity.”

The Indians (7-5) will need that belief as they go against their Midwest Athletic Conference foe.

Marion Local (11-0) has built an outstanding resume that includes the previous four state championships, being undefeated with a 75-0 record since 2021 and a 33-0 record against Fort Recovery all time.

The Flyers have beaten Fort Recovery three times in the playoffs, the most recent defeat coming last year by 68 points. MLHS has also beaten the Tribe in the regional opener 29-0 in 2017 and in 2014’s regional semifinal 35-0.

Fort Recovery has already taken some steps in the right direction. In the two games last season, FRHS fell to the Flyers by over 60 points in a pair of shutouts. In a week 7 loss to Marion Local, the Indians managed to find the end zone in a 41-7 defeat.

“In that first game, we put our players in positions to win one-on-one battles,” Wenning said. “Some of those were not won, so there’s a huge emphasis on one-on-one open field. If it’s you and another guy, you’ve got to win. … There were some positives to pull from that first game, even though the score might tell you otherwise. Now it’s just cleaning up those fine little details and moving forward.”

Reece Wendel had the strongest offensive performance for FRHS during the regular season matchup. He had 87 yards on 13 rushes and scored Fort Recovery’s lone touchdown in the third quarter.

Outside of Wendel, the Tribe only had 77 yards. Forty-six of those yards came on the ground with Breaker Jutte rushing for 24 and Alex Gaerke adding 22. The remaining 31 yards came from Gaerke’s 6-of-16 performance at quarterback.

“The first game we played, we made a lot of mental mistakes and it was obvious through the first half,” Wendel said. “In the second half, we come out, go right down the field, everybody does their job, and we score a touchdown. If we do a lot of that, we’ll be in a good position.”

On the other side of the ball, Marion Local was able to move the ball in the air and on the ground. Kamden Eifert led the rushing game with nine carries for 109 yards and three touchdowns, while Brennen Hess completed seven of his 12 passing attempts for 130 yards and two touchdowns.

The Tribe couldn’t force the Flyers to commit any turnovers, but did force them to punt the ball once. The defensive unit will need to avoid mental mistakes and cut off the run to give its secondary, which has 14 interceptions this year, a chance to create havoc.

“We need to be more technically sound and more disciplined on defense,” said linebacker Josh Evers. “We had guys not doing their job, myself included, and we all have to rally to the football.

“We have to stop the sweep first and the run in general. Then make them throw the ball and when they put the ball in the air we have to go get it.”

The Indians only had one turnover and committed just one penalty in the regular season loss to Marion Local. While they want to continue playing cleanly, they also will look for some bigger improvements from the special teams unit as it gave up 92 yards on punt returns and kickoffs.

But beyond any technical changes the Indians make, the biggest key to victory will be believing that they can take down the monster the Flyers have built.

“We need a group that believes in the mission first and foremost, and finishes,” Wenning said. “Sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t, just like many games in our conference.

“That’s the thing that this game is. It’s another football game that’s well coached and we’ve seen plenty of this year. So A. gotta believe and B. gotta finish and we’ll see where the chips fall.”