Fort Recovery sophomore Hudson Overman led a paint attack with 16 points in the Indians’ district final victory. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Logan Howard)
Fort Recovery’s rise under Bob Leverette paid off Friday night with a first district title since 2010. Troy Christian, regulars at this stage, won their third in four years.
Fairborn, OH – District finals routinely feature teams like Troy Christian. The Eagles know the feeling.
And Ray Zawadzki Jr.’s boys basketball team enjoyed it again Friday night with a 60-45 Division VI victory over Cincinnati Deer Park to advance to regionals for the third time in four seasons.
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Then there are the Fort Recoverys of the OHSAA, always dreaming about district finals but rarely getting close to them. The Indians hadn’t won a district trophy since 2010. Last year they won eight games and lost to Anna in a district final.
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But the Indians’ time has come. They arrived at Fairborn High School’s beautiful Skyhawk Arena, not wanting to put it off another year.
Fort Recovery, a program not carried by seniors and trying to make a name for itself in the highly competitive Midwest Athletic Conference, showed Springfield Emmanuel Christian what basketball is like in the MAC.
The Lions (22-2) had won 22 straight since a season-opening loss to Cedarville. But the rest of their schedule didn’t measure up to what Fort Recovery saw.
The Indians have size the Lions aren’t used to and used it to score at will in the lane and rebound their way to a 63-44 victory in the night’s second game.
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“It means the world to us,” junior Brody Barga said. “This is our first district title in 16 years. I was two years old. You see everybody here coming out to support us an hour and 30 minutes away. It’s a lot.”
After receiving their trophy and medals, the Indians cut down the net. While that happened, Fort Recovery fans filtered onto the court and shared a moment some had never seen.
Even Fort Recovery’s guards scored in the paint. Five-foot-eight sophomore guard Braylon Dilworth added seven points to the cause.
“It’s a whole different feeling,” junior Breaker Jutte said. “I’ve never felt this way before.”
The Indians (15-10) must prepare over the next three days to play a team who knows all about the MAC: Marion Local, last year’s Division VI state runner-up. The Flyers (23-1) defeated Ada 52-23 Friday and will battle Fort Recovery on Tuesday at Butler in the region semifinals.
On December 12, Marion opened its season with a 53-39 victory at Fort Recovery. The Indians, who were playing their fourth game, trailed by a point early in the fourth quarter on a night when neither team shot well from 3-point range.
“We got nothing to lose … Cinderella, right?” Indians coach Bob Leverette said. “We can go play loose. All the pressure’s on them. See what happens. It’ll be fun.”
The Indians start Jutte and Barga at 6-foot-6 and sophomore Hudson Overman at 6-3 and close to 300 pounds. They settled for too many 3-pointers in the first half. The message at halftime was clear: pound the paint and only shoot 3s after the ball goes inside and comes back out.
Up 26-20 at halftime, the Indians saw the lead shrink to two quickly. Then they took over, going on runs of 9-0 and 10-0, interrupted by a single ECA basket. They entered the fourth quarter leading 47-27. And the fans started counting down the seconds to victory.
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“We just wanted to put them away,” Barga said. “Last game was way too close. We’ve had too many close games throughout the year. We just wanted to put that one away.”
The Indians dominated the lane where 6-4 ECA senior Nate Hudson (20 points) was the only Lion big enough to matter. The Indians made five 3-pointers and their other 19 field goals were all in the lane near the basket. Jutte scored 19 with two dunks. Overman scored 16 and was a complete mismatch.
Brody Barga only scored two points, but he made good passes and did lots of other little things well for the Indians.
Overman’s size and width is one thing. But his nimble feet, ability to drive, jump stop and shoot with touch was unstoppable.
“No one can guard him,” Jutte said. “You don’t see anybody his size that can move like that and shoot like that. How you supposed to guard him? He’s a great player, and I’m really glad he’s on our team.”
Barga, who averages 10 points a game, scored only two. But that’s OK with Leverette because of all the winning plays Barga makes on both ends of the floor.
“I’ve never cared about that,” Barga said of scoring. “It’s always been about team. But on the MAC leader boards, my grandpa said I’m like a joker because I was in every single category. I take a lot of pride in that. If you can’t score, you got to find other ways to impact the game.”
Leverette is in his fourth season as head coach and has coached in the program off and on since 2003. Nights like Friday are what he envisioned when he became head coach.
“We had to create the culture that kids bought into, get our numbers back out and just grind,” he said. “We had to get better skill wise, and we did that over the last four years. This is the result.”
Troy Christian senior Riston Taylor scored 11 points helped lead the Eagles to their third district title in four years.
Zawadzki Jr. started that mission long ago at Troy Christian. In his stops at Tippecanoe, Vandalia Butler and Troy Christian, he’s coached in 18 district finals. So when his team went to the fourth quarter up 44-28, he knew what to expect.
Deer Park turned to a full-court press and trapped the inbounds pass. They even pressed off misses. The Eagles struggled to beat the pressure and turnovers created easy baskets for the Wildcats. By the four-minute mark the lead was cut in half to eight.
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“Desperation is setting in – their energy level was going to go to another level,” Zawadzki Jr. said. “We had to match it. And at first we didn’t. We were just, ‘Oh, la de da.’ We’re all ‘life is good.’ But when people face the end of their season, there is another gear they can shift into, and Deer Park did a great job of doing that.”
The Eagles regrouped and Zawadzki Jr. relocated junior sharpshooter Noah Fecher from the middle of the floor to the left side. He got open twice for wide-open 3-pointers and the Eagles rebuilt the lead to double digits.
Noah Fecher led the Eagles with 17 points, including two crucial 3-pointers in the fourth quarter.
“If I know one thing about my team, it’s Noah Fecher can shoot the basketball, especially if he’s standing alone,” Zawadzki Jr. “I needed him to be a receiver. And give our kids credit. They were able to get past that initial blow, and when they did, we had wide-open shots.”
Fecher led the Eagles with 17 points. He felt no pressure in the fourth quarter.
“Coach put me there for a reason,” he said. “I shoot that shot a hundred times in practice. It’s routine.”
The Eagles also benefitted from balanced scoring. Sophomore Austin Stangel found all sorts of ways to score and finished with 14, Brennan Hochwalt scored 12 and leading scorer Riston Taylor had 11.
The finish belied the start.
The Eagles’ strategy was to control Deer Park senior Antonio White and his 34 points a game average. What the Eagles didn’t expect was for four other players to combine on five made 3-pointers in the first quarter on the way to a 17-12 lead.
“I’m looking at the scoreboard and it’s 17 points – we just don’t give up 17 points in a quarter,” Zawadzki Jr. said. “I’m like, ‘Oh no. If they keep shooting like this, we’re in trouble.’”
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The Wildcats were shooting well against the zone, but White wasn’t getting any room to maneuver. And the Wildcats needed White to score. So they held the ball to pull the Eagles out of their 2-3 zone. Zawadzki Jr. didn’t want to change, but his assistants convinced him to switch to man-to-man.
And the Wildcats stopped hitting and the Eagles gained energy. By halftime they led 26-20, setting the stage for the decisive third quarter.
Troy Christian sophomore Austin Stangel scored 12 of his 14 points in the middle quarters.
“What I really liked was that our kids didn’t panic,” Zawadzki Jr. said. “They stayed with the game plan.”
Part of the game plan was adhere Hochwalt on White like duct tape. White needed to score 15 points to set Deer Park’s career scoring record. Hochwalt held him to 11.
“He’s a great player,” Hochwalt said. “All I had to do was face guard him the whole time, make sure to keep him in front of me and just go from there. I do this almost my entire career. I’m basically a defensive player.”
Zawadzki Jr. said Hochwalt deserved all the praise and credit for stifling White’s game.
“He was on an island a few times by himself, but he found him early, latched on, didn’t let go,” Zawadzki Jr. said. “And the other guys helped out immensely.”
Ray Zawadzki Jr. celebrates Troy Christian’s victory after a final snip of the net.
The Eagles’ next task is likely to be top-seeded and unbeaten Tri-Village in Tuesday’s other region semifinal at Butler. Tri-Village plays Cincinnati Oyler on Saturday at Middletown High School in another district final. The Eagles lost 60-43 at Tri-Village on January 10.
While Zawadzki Jr. is well-versed in district finals and regional tournaments and knows the Butler gym well, he is experiencing new personal challenges.
His mom, who kept his stats, died in May. His dad, Ray Zawadzki Sr., the longtime coach at Butler, is 86. He still comes to games but in a wheelchair. He was there Friday.
“It means everything,” Zawadzki Jr. said. “Just the fact that when I first started coaching it was with him. And just to watch and learn from him and to know his passion to get to district finals and win them. You could see the tears of joy in him tonight. Mom kept stats for a thousand basketball games. For her not to be here is sad, but to see dad be able to make it was quite a joy.”
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