Fort Recovery’s offense to much for Rangers in MAC boys basketball defeat.
NEW KNOXVILLE — In the team’s continued quest to notch their first Midwest Athletic Conference victory in more than three years, the Rangers matched basket for basket with Fort Recovery in the first and third quarters, but the Indians’ offense was too much to contain on a possession-by- possession basis as the Indians left The Barn with a 53- 40 win on Friday.
“Against an athletic and skilled team like Fort Recovery, it is hard to stop a team possession after possession when it take strong mental fortitude,” Rangers coach Cole Fischbach said. “I’m still trying to get these guys — and they’ve done a great job to this point for learning a man [defense] when they’ve been primarily a zone team there the last couple years — we just had a couple of defensive breakdowns.”
The Rangers matched the Indians basket for basket in the first quarter as both teams shot 4-of-10 from the floor.
Fort Recovery led 6-3 following Derek Jutte’s 3-pointer in the first quarter, but New Knoxville pulled within one on a putback by Carson Bierlein.
After Owen Jutte connected on a bucket from an offensive board, Patrick Covert connected from deep to tie the game at 8-8 with 2:08 remaining in the opening quarter.
Covert gave the Rangers a short lead before Cale Rammel’s bucket with 57.6 seconds left tied the game at the end of the quarter.
difference in the game came in the second quarter.
Still matching basket for basket with the Indians, Max Henschen tied the game at 15-15 with a 3-pointer at the 5:50 mark, prompting the Indians to call a timeout .
out of the timeout, Dillan Evers’ rebound and putback began an avalanche of points for Fort Recovery.
After weathering through two scoreless possessions following Evers’ bucket, Rammel connected on a jumper, Brian Bihn got his first points of the game with a bucket and Gavin Thobe concluded the run with a layup as part of an 8- 0 run by the Indians to led 23-15 with 3:11 left in the first half.
The Rangers stopped the bleeding with a pair of free throws from Bierlein and a 3-pointer from Covert, but Fort Recovery concluded the first half with a pair of buckets — a transition two by Derek Jutte and a 3-pointer from Regan Martin to push the lead to 31-20 at the half.
Fort Recovery shot 9-of-14 from the floor in the second quarter and outscored the Rangers 21-10.
Rebounding aided the Indians as well as with a 15-5 advantage in the first half while the Rangers snatched just one offensive.
But the Rangers continued to fight in the second half and gave the team a chance for its first MAC win since Dec. 15, 2017.
After a free throw by Rammel extended the Indians’ lead to 32- 20 to open the third quarter, the Rangers went back to matching baskets with Fort Recovery beginning with Henschen’s second 3-pointer.
Following back-to- back missed treys by the Indians, the Rangers took advantage as they scored on their next three possessions.
Off those missed shots from downtown by the Indians, the Rangers paced the floor to setup an open up a triple by Ryland Dyrness from the left wing and a drive-in bucket by Covert one possession later to close the gap to 32-27 with 5:45 remaining.
“Like I told them in the locker room, we did a great job of stopping them at that nine, 10-point range and our guys gave us a chance to fight all throughout the rest of that game,” Fischbach added. “That’s where they did their best work.”
That was the last time New Knoxville made
any run offensively in the game while a putback by Rammel and a 3-pointer two possessions later by Owen Jutte put the game back to 10 points with 4:32 left.
From there, the closest the Rangers got was within seven points in the early seconds of the fourth quarter on Covert’s jumper to pull to 41-34 as Jutte closed the game out by scoring the game’s next six game after Bihn’s opening- minute bucket to push
the lead to 39-37 with 2:03 left in regulation. Since New Knoxville closed the gap to five in the third quarter, the team finished 4-of-19 from the floor as the Indians gobbled up 10 defensive boards. New Knoxville finished with three offensive rebounds on the night.
“We really didn’t give up as many offensive rebounds as I thought we might going into a game when you go up against a man like Brian Bihn size or Cale Rammel size,” Fischbach said. “We did a great job of boxing them out but our offensive rebounding was almost non-existent and I told our guys that it is something you almost have to work on.
“We didn’t do a great job going to the boards throughout the week and when you don’t practice it, it is hard to translate that into a game.”
Covert led the Rangers with 20 points, followed by eighth from Henschen. Fort Recovery had two players do most of the damage as Jutte finished with a team-high 17 points, followed by Rammel with 15.
Through 10 games, the Rangers have been outscored by 134 points, but the team has seen an improvement from last year when the team was outscored by a combined 190 points as the team has shown fight all season.
Still, Fischbach felt it was too early to be able to accurately assess his team.
“We’ve had an excellent season up to this point in my eyes,” the first-year coach said. “When you’re coming off two pretty subpar seasons it’s hard to make a true assessment when these guys have only been with you for 10 games right now.
“They are still learning the system and I am still somewhat learning their skill set and it is hard to make everything flow nice and smooth when kids have been in the program for five or six years.”
The Indians won the junior varsity game 44- 11.
Rangers will play Saturday at Jackson Center.