Fort Recovery downs Lake girls in regional semifinal (3-9-11)

ADA — For the entire season, the story of Lake’s girls basketball team has been its defense and how it
has worn down opponents.
Tuesday night at Ohio Northern University, the Flyers found out what it was like to face a defense that
is as good as, if not better, in the Division III regional semifinals against Fort Recovery.
Lake faced arguably the most intense and physical defense that it had seen all year, and the Flyers
weren’t able to recover from a 12-point first quarter deficit leading to a 45-36 season-ending loss
before a crowd of 1,581.
Second-ranked Lake, in its first appearance in a regional semifinal since 1986, finishes the season 22-2
overall.
“We knew that (Fort Recovery) would pressure us like crazy, which they did,” Flyer head coach Denny Meyer
said. “The great thing I thought was we fought back. Unfortunately because we don’t have much depth, we
spent a whole lot of energy fighting back. When you get down 15 points in the first half and work that
hard to come back, it’s very tough.”
The Indians (22-2) used a full-court press for the majority of the contest, which didn’t bode well for
Lake’s usual six-person rotation.
The Flyers, who have not had conditioning issues all year, found themselves getting beat on defense and
having to work to not only score, but advance the ball up court.
“We knew that (Fort Recovery) would get up in us tight like that,” Meyer said. “We knew they would be
physical, but I think it was a little more than what we thought it would be. Again, with the lack of
depth that we have, it’s hard for us to simulate that in practice.”
“Definitely they came at us hard right off the bat and when they’re working you that hard and forcing you
to spend that much energy just to get the ball down the court, it makes the offense a little tougher
getting those shots that we normally get,” Lake senior Kaysie Brittenham said.
From the opening tip, Fort Recovery looked as if it was on a mission.
The Indians’ defense didn’t allow the Flyers to get a shot off until the 4:24 mark of the opening
quarter, while their offense hit 8-of-10 shots from inside the 3-point line.
Also, Fort Recovery’s defense forced 11 turnovers in the first quarter while gaining a 19-7 lead.
“We definitely came out afraid,” Meyer said.
The Indians took advantage of their pressure by converting 28 Flyer turnovers into 31 points.
Brittenham, who scored a game-high 15 points, didn’t receive the help from senior post Carly Huston, as
she did in their previous game against Genoa, where Huston scored 15 points.
Tuesday night, Huston was held to just seven as the Fort Recovery defense didn’t allow consistent ball
movement inside.
“Brittenham didn’t get a chance to make any good, clean passes to Huston,” Indians coach Doug Bihn said.
“We teach, if you want to defend the post, you’ve got to put pressure on the wing. We feel that if we
put enough pressure on the wing and the point, and we don’t give them a good, clean look, it’s hard to
throw the ball in the post.”
Hannah Cox gave Lake one final chance at a comeback as she hit her only two field goals of the game to
start the fourth quarter. She finished with nine points.
Fort Recovery’s Holly Brunswick scored 14 points while Kendra Brunswick added nine.
Though Lake isn’t finishing its season the way it would like, coach Meyer still has something of which to
be proud.
“To me the greatest thing is … when we had players that decided they didn’t to be a part of the program
this year and we only had five or six girls that we knew were going to be playing varsity and everybody
told us we weren’t going to be any good because of that,” Meyer said. “And then the way that they played
the whole year to fight through that, to me was amazing.”
GIRLS
DIVISION III
REGIONAL SEMIFINAL
FORT RECOVERY 45, LAKE 36
FORT RECOVERY
Thien, 1-0—2; O. Schwieterman, 0-1-0—3; H. Brunswick, 4-2-0—14; Kahlig, 0-1-1—4; Huelskamp, 1-0—2;
Dilworth, 2-3—7; Nietfeld, 2-0—4; K. Brunswick, 3-1-0—9. TOTALS: 13-5-4—45
LAKE
Brittenham, 3-3-0—15; Woodruff, 0-0—0; Dabney, 0-0—0; Johnson, 2-1—5; Cox, 1-1-4—9; Pennington, 0-0—0;
Huston, 3-1—7; Shaffer, 0-0—0; LaPlante, 0-0—0. TOTALS: 9-4-6—36
FORT RECOVERY
19 5 16 5 —45
LAKE 7 9 12 8 —36