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St. Henry's Lauren Thieman tries to get in front of Fort Recovery's Cali Wendel as she takes the ball up the sideline at Redskin Gymnasium on Thursday.
ST. HENRY - Fort Recovery was able to keep the game close for the first 15 minutes, but on either side of halftime, St. Henry blew it open.
The Redskins scored six points in the final minute of the first half, then opened the third quarter on an 8-2 run on the way to a 50-36 win in a Midwest Athletic Conference girls basketball game on Thursday.
"We've been working hard in practice, trying to be more consistent on the offensive end," St. Henry coach Nate Uhlenhake said. "We had our spurts where we were and our spurts when we weren't. It was good to see us come out in the third quarter and get some buckets and make a little run there. We haven't done that in a couple games."
Fort Recovery (6-12, 2-5 MAC) closed within three with 1:35 left in the second quarter, holding the Redskins to three points in the first seven minutes of the quarter after allowing St. Henry to open the game on a 7-0 run.
But in the next 95 seconds, the Redskins' pressure got to the Indians. Leah Lefeld hit a free throw to make it a four-point game, then Ava Homan stole the ball, and when she missed the layup, Lefeld was there for the stick-back with 56 seconds remaining.
Makenna Huelskamp was called for a double-dribble in the backcourt trying to sneak between two defenders, and Lefeld found Homan cutting to the basket for a wide-open layup with 38 seconds to go.
Alexis Buschur then stole the ball and scored on the breakaway with 22.3 seconds left, and St. Henry (11-5, 5-2 MAC) went into halftime up 20-10.
"It started with our defense," Uhlenhake said. "We get makes, we can set up our pressure, and that just kept happening - pressure, get a steal, go up and finish. It worked out well, to finish the quarter out that way."
Fort Recovery turned the ball over again six seconds into the third on another double-dribble, but it was the Redskins' rebounding that separated them this time. Molly Wendel grabbed a missed 3-pointer and put it back 23 seconds in, then scored again off a miss by Morgan Baumer.
Lefeld was there on another errant three 26 seconds after that, and when she drove the baseline for another layup with 5:48 to go in the third, St. Henry had a commanding 28-12 lead.
For the game, the Redskins had 10 more rebounds than the Indians, including 12 offensive rebounds that they turned into 20 second-chance points. Lefeld finished with nine rebounds and Molly Wendel snared six.
St. Henry's Leah Lefeld secures a rebound in front of Fort Recovery's Saige Leuthold.
"(They're) tall, strong post players, athletic, able to go up and get the ball and be strong with the ball when they do get it," Fort Recovery coach Tyler Deitsch said. "Our boxing out was not great, we didn't have great positioning down low. Part of that was the zone we played at times, other parts were long rebounds or just not being in the right spot, but definitely could've done a better job of boxing out, keeping them off the boards, which is something we talked about."
After Lefeld made it a 19-point game with 4 1/2 minutes left in the third, Niekamp got a hoop-and-harm and Cali Wendel sank a deep three to keep the game in reach.
Morgan Baumer answered, swishing a trey on a pass from Chloe Speck, then stole the ball, and Molly Wendel hit Speck with a cross-court pass to set up another open three.
Fort Recovery got back within 15 by the end of the third and cut the deficit to 12 with 4 1/2 minutes to go, but St. Henry kept the game from getting any closer.
"I want them to know that we can compete with top-10 teams in the state," Deitsch said. "These guys are a great team in Division IV, and it's not a team that we backed down from, either time we played them. Obviously the results aren't exactly what we wanted, but being able to finish things the right way and make somewhat of a game out of it is promising."
St. Henry ran a full-court press most of the way, and Uhlenhake said they were trapping more. It led to 16 steals and 32 forced turnovers.
"It helps with our team energy, and I think it's one of our strengths," he said. "We need to continue to improve our pressure defense without fouling - we got in some foul trouble in the first half, which hurt us a little bit - but we'll continue to learn and grow and get better at it."
Lefeld scored 16 points, with eight other Redskins scoring as Uhlenhake got 11 players in the game. Cali Wendel paced the Indians with 13 points and Niekamp had seven rebounds.
St. Henry hosts Bath on Saturday, while Fort Recovery returns to Fort Site Fieldhouse on Monday to take on Celina.
