March 27, 1999

Basketball roundup

By Pat Magers
Sports Writer

COLUMBUS - It is called Mercer County, but folks throughout Value City Arena are starting to call it Land of the Giants.

One after Coldwater auditioned for the tag Hulks Are Us comes Fort Recovery. Just five miles separate the two communities, which means someone really should check the water in these parts. The Cavaliers are big and beefy; the Indians are bigger and beefier.

The size factor proved too much to handle for Berlin Hiland, which fell to Fort Recovery 68-55 in a Division IV state boys basketball semifinal Friday. The Indians take a 25-1 record into today's 6 p.m. championship game against Worthington Christian, which knocked off Edgerton 77-48. The biggest and beefiest Indian was junior Chris Bihn, a 6-4, 250 pounder who overwhelmed Hiland with 31 points and 11 rebounds.

"The kid is unbelievably strong," Hiland coach Perry Reese said. "We fronted him, we put people behind him, we double-teamed him and even triple-teamed him. I know it is part of the game, but it also seemed like everything he put up, off-balance or not, went in. It seemed like every tip, everything early on, went his way."

"When he got the ball down low, he just went over us," he said. "We hammered him and banged him, but we couldn't stop him."

Meanwhile, the Indians eventually did put the stops to what Hiland does best &emdash; shoot the 3-pointer.

Previous to Friday's game, the Hawks had hit 194-of-520 from beyond the arc. They were averaging 80.5 points per game, highest among the 16 teams in the weekend tournament.

Fort Recovery did it by switching to a 3-2 zone, one which put 6-5 Clark May at the top of the key to disrupt a Hiland attack that had built a 19-13 lead.

"We felt, with our size, we didn't match up well with their quickness," Fort Recovery coach Joe Bruns said. "We've got 240-pound guys out there chasing those kids from endline to endline and that wasn't going to work.

"Ninety-five percent of the time, we like a man defense," he said. "I didn't think we'd stay in it that long, but the (Jason) Mishler kid concerned us with his ability to penetrate and kick it back out. Having Clark out there helped stop that."

Hiland was so frustrated, it went 7:47 without scoring a single point at the close of the second period and start of the third.

Joe Miller hit a 3-pointer with 3:50 left in the half to give the Hawks a 25-24 lead. But by halftime, Fort Recovery was on top by a 32-25 count. The margin grew to 38-25 before Miller ended the shutout with another trey, this one with 4:03 left in the third.

Three-point shooting was one Hawk weapon neutralized. The other, full-court pressure, met with little success as well.

"Their size beat the press, too," Reese said. "They kind of threw the ball over the top of us and they did a nice job of spreading us out. They were probably in a little better shape than I thought."

THIS IS THE WAY IT IS &emdash; Worthington Christian knocked down 10-of-22 shots from 3-point range, but make no mistake, it is defense that has laid the foundation for the Warriors.

The ringleader is junior guard Jason Weakley, who badgered Edgerton standout C.J. Short into arguably the most frustrating game of his career. Short, who was averaging 18.3 points, was limited to seven shots and two points.

"You've got to make a statement the first couple of possessions," Weakley said. "You've got to show them you're going to play hard 'D' and they're not going to get easy buckets."

"We didn't get much of a scouting report on them, but everything we did get from the scouts and on the intern talked about C.J. Short," WC coach Ray Slagle said. "He had a bucket, but I don't remember when it was &emdash; it wasn't in the first half, I know that. That is directly attributed to Jason Weakley's defense. People don't score on Jason Weakley."

Weakley finished with 10 points and five assists, but his most noticeable stat was his six steals.

"To be honest, when (Short) dribbled out top, he didn't do much," Weakley said. "When he did his spin move, he switched to a different hand and just left the ball out there."

Weakley and mates made a real impression on Edgerton head coach Steve Lamberson.

"They truly did a great job defensively. That's as hard as we've seen them play defensively," Lamberson said. "Eleven steals, that's impressive. They have very quick hands and they're physical. They got a lot of layups off those steals."

BASKETBALL BLOODLINE &emdash; Weakley is the son of Scott Weakley, who once coached Worthington Christian and more recently served as head coach at Capital University. He resigned the Capital position a few years ago so he could watch his sons play. Kevin Weakley was the point guard on WC's 1994 team, which was state runner-up to Upper Scioto Valley.

BASKETBALL BLOODLINE II &emdash; Clark May is the son of Ron May, who scored 16 points in the semifinal and 12 points in the championship game to help Fort Recovery win the state championship in 1971. Chuck Bihn is the younger brother of Chris Bihn, who is head coach of Division III state finalist Coldwater.

TOUGH TO BE OBJECTIVE &emdash; As usual, the mad media rush for the state basketball tournament stretches the spectrum. At one end are papers and radio stations from the major population centers and at the other end are weekly newspapers such as Edgerton Earth.

The reporter from the Earth had a three-pronged challenge &emdash; write a story, take photos and try not to be seen rooting for his son.

"You worry a little, I guess, about making sure you are fair to everyone," Steve Willmot, whose sons Benji and Josiah played for the Bulldogs. "No one ever complained, which is nice."

The fact that Benji, a 6-4 senior, averaged nearly eight points and was the team's season-long leading rebounder probably made Steve Wilmot's job a little easier. Benji Wilmot had 15 points and shared team-high scoring honors with Brent VanHorn in the loss to Worthington Christian. Josiah is just a freshman who moved up to varsity at the close of the regular season.

GENERATION GAP &emdash; Edgerton's loss to Worthington Christian marked the second time a Bulldog team reached the state tournament. The first was more than a little before the current players' memory &emdash; Edgerton knocked off Lynnwood-Jacksontown 57-53 for the championship in 1959.

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR? &emdash; Worthington Christian has just two seniors on its roster although one of them, Sammy Smith, might be especially tough to replace. The second-team All-Ohioan bound for University of Dayton next year is averaging 20.7 points and 8.7 rebounds.

Berlin Hiland shows even more potential &emdash; the Hawks do not have a senior on this year's roster and Friday's game marked their second straight appearance in the state tournament. They lost to Dayton Jefferson in the 1998 semifinals.

"When the time comes, we'll talk about that," Reese said. "One of the things we wanted to guard against was to not be satisfied with just getting here. I mean no disrespect to anybody, but we're no better than last year because we're in the same place right now that we ended up last year."