The Jets had a lot of incentive for this basketball game. The
senior laden team lost a team mate for the remainder of the season
when senior Heath Kaufman suffered a severe concussion with a
fall in the last play of practice earlier in the week. It was
severe enough that Paramedics were called in and Coach Dane French
stated that it really shook the whole team up. The good news
is that Heath is OK and time will help recover the majority of
the damage from the concussion. The bad news is that it ended
his basketball season early and his Jet team mates wanted this
one for Heath.
The second incentive occurred on February 13th when the Jets
took a huge game on the chin at the Jungle when they watched
a 4th quarter lead evaporate. The Tigers went on to win that
game in overtime and everything went the Tigers way that night
for the last 8 minutes of the game, while the Jets looked like
a puppy lost in a tornado.
Talk about redemption…and turnabout being
fair play.
Maybe the first sign that it was going to be
FM’s day
was when 6’5”, sophomore, Van Spitler won the tip
over Ansonia’s 6’8” big man, Adam Kremer.
FM threw the ball into the paint and Spitler
took it to Kremer and was able to find the bottom of the net
that gave FM the early
lead. Brandon Liette countered for Ansonia with a 12 foot jumper
off the elbow and the game was tied in the first minute of
the contest. The next 31 minutes belonged to the Royal Blue
and
White. No
other colors needed to apply.
Tyler Shrodi drained a trey for the Jets to make
the score 5 – 2.
The Jets turned their efforts into a full court press after
the made shot and that is when it got ugly with a capital U if
you
were a Tigers fan. Lane Lucas and the other Jet guards used
their quickness to raise havoc with the Tiger team attempting
to break
the FM press.
At one point in the quarter the Tigers had more
turnovers than shot attempts. Ansonia Coach Chad Cramer called
two timeouts
in the quarter to try to stop the hemorrhaging but after the
Jet fumes dissipated from the gym floor after the first quarter
buzzer the score board read Jets 16 – Tiger 2.
The second quarter was more of the same as the
Jets outscored the Tigers 11 – 4. FM lead as much as 23 – 2 until
Liette connected on a pair of free throws for Ansonia with 1:36
remaining in the half and Kremer connected on a shot in the paint
with less than a minute on the clock for his only 2 points of
the first half. The first half was just a case of FM flying on
all cylinders cranking and nothing positive would go in Ansonia’s
direction.
“That was a pretty good fist half, knocking down shots,
getting defensive stops and creating turnovers” smiled
FM Coach Dane French. “We knew that it was a key to come
out a get off to an early lead. We wanted to set the tone right
for the start. We knew that this is a tough place to shoot
the first game so I think we did a good job of trying to make
them
hit jump shots. Fortunately for us they were not able to do
that.”
“Their defense hit us hard and our guys just didn’t
respond to it very well” noted Tiger Coach Chad Cramer
commenting on the first half. “We were trying to do everything
too fast and guys were trying to get us back into the game by
themselves. That’s no fault to them. They wanted to win
so bad and I think that hurt us a little bit.”
The second half was played pretty even as FM
outscored the Tigers 31-29. The damage was done in the first
4 minutes of the 1st
quarter and FM redeemed their season collapse in the Jungle
with a 58 – 35 win in the post season.
“This was kind of a redemption game as we felt we gave
that game away up there” noted French. We felt like if
we played our game that we would have some success against
them, but they are a good, solid team with they type of schedule
that
they play.”
“I told myself last night that whatever happens today
wasn’t going to effect how I felt about our year” noted
Coach Cramer in talking about the team’s accomplishments
of the season. “That is a great group of kids in there.
Our guys just bust their butt every game. A lot of times we are
not the most talented team on the floor but we have been competing.
Besides this game and the Fort Recovery we’ve been in every
game this year and with the competition level we play; that says
a lot. I’ve been proud of our guys. A great group of
kids to coach”
With Kaufman out, the play of sophomore Van Spitler
against a more experience and taller opponent was noted. “He’s
going up against an All Conference center and he was able to
hold his own” noted French. “Of course we had guys
helping out and doubling down on Kremer but Vandy did a great
job on him. The shots that Kremer did get, he (Spitler) contested
real well and he made him hit some tough shots. I was real
proud of Vandy; he rebounded well, ended up with 9 points and
just
played a great game for a sophomore kid to step into a game
like that. That is really big!”
“Its tournament time and you take it one game at a time” beamed
French. “No matter who we play we will give it our best
effort and see what happens. I’m just real proud of our
kids. We’ve been through a lot this year and for these
kids to come together now, it just shows the character of them.”
The Jets will play Dayton Jefferson at the Vandalia
Butler Student Activity Center Friday March 6th at 8:30
PM.
Score by quarters
FM…....16…27…42…58
Ansonia…2…6…20…35
FM
Lucas – 17 (2-3)
Feitshans – 2 (2-2)
Shrodi – 5 (0-1)
Detling – 2 (2-2)
French – 7 (2-3)
Van Spitler – 9 (1-2)
Pressly – 12 (0-1)
Glasscoe – 4 (2-2)
Total - 58 (11-16)
Ansonia
Liette – 10 (3-5)
Kermer – 16 (10-12)
Dy. Bubeck – 6 (3-3)
Walters – 3
Rowland – 0 (0-1)
Total – 35 (16-21)
3 Point Goals
FM – 3 (Lucas, Shrodi, French)
Ansonia – 3 (Liette, Bubeck, Walters)
