Indians roll past Bulldogs

CELINA - Fort Recovery encountered a few rough spots along the way on Tuesday night, but for the most part, it was smooth sailing for Tori Lennartz and her Indian teammates in a 47-34 victory over Celina on Senior Night at the Fieldhouse.

Lennartz had 18 points on 50 percent shooting, five rebounds to go with three assists and the Indians outscored the Bulldogs 26-17 in the final half to add another positive to the win column.

Heather Heiby carried the offensive load for the Bulldogs, matching Lennartz for a game-high 18 points. The junior guard shot 53 percent from the field, but her running-mates' frosty shooting resulted in a team field goal percentage of .279.

"I think all year we've done a pretty good job in most of our games of holding the opposition to a low percentage and low points," Fort Recovery coach Brian Patch said.

"If we can continue to guard people and defend, obviously that's going to give us a chance to win a lot of games."

That formula has worked to this point for the Indians, who improved to 15-6 overall and 11-2 in non-conference games.

Four different Fort Recovery players got in the scoring column in the first 3 1/2 minutes of the opening quarter, which resulted in an 8-2 lead before Celina coach Toma Hainline called a timeout. The Bulldogs made 1-of-12 field goal attempts in the first quarter, during which Lennartz scored seven points on 3-of-3 from the floor and helped put the Indians up 14-5.

Celina halved the deficit to 14-7 at the start of the second quarter on Heather Heiby's dish to Kennedy Swann, but Lennartz countered with four straight points and the lead swelled to 12. When it appeared Fort Recovery was pulling away, though, Heiby had other ideas. She scored 10 points to end the quarter and finished the half with 13, pulling the Bulldogs' margin within 21-17 at halftime.

"She came real composed tonight," Hainline said. "She did a good job breaking the press and then coming down and getting us in our offense and taking her shots when she had it.

"We talked about it at halftime, other people stepping up and taking some pressure off of her and looking for their shots. We took some shots, we just didn't make them."

However, the Indians took control in the second half, opening the third on a 7-1 run to take a 28-18 lead with 3:40 remaining. Again, though, Heiby turned it on, hitting back-to-back buckets to cut the deficit in half. This time around, though, the Indians responded with a 12-2 run spanning from the late third quarter to early in the fourth and they didn't let up, expanding their lead to as much as 18 at one point.

"We knew (Heiby) could shoot, you know. She's a nice player," Patch said. "But a lot of it in the first half is we were over-pursuing and we were caught out of position too much. We were trying to gamble and that allowed her to get by us and get some openings.

"What we talked about at halftime is just playing sound defense."

Fort Recovery's Kendra Siefring scored 10 points and snatched nine rebounds. The 6-foot-2 senior got to the line 12 times and used her height to make it difficult on Celina shooters all night. Jocelyn Kaiser added eight points and seven boards.

The Indians end the regular season against St. Henry at Fort Site Fieldhouse on Thursday.

Jenna Berry added six points for the Bulldogs, who will aim to finish the Western Buckeye League season on a positive note at Kenton on Thursday.