February 20, 2000

Tornadoes win over Fostoria

By Pat Mager
Sports Writers

FOSTORIA &emdash; Matt Hutchinson says you can count on one finger the number of games his Columbian Tornadoes have won at the foul line this season. And as recently as Friday night, all you needed was a fist.

But the story at the stripe was the story of the night Saturday for the Tornadoes, who turned back Fostoria 85-72.

Columbian converted 30-of-37 from the foul line, key numbers to be sure in advancing its record to 11-8 while dropping the Redmen to 4-13. They were the type of numbers Hutchinson thought his team was capable of producing from the beginning. Actually, they were better.

"We have been shooting 59 percent from the line, if that," the TC coach said. "Before the season started, I thought we could potentially shoot 70 percent as a team. I looked at our guys and there weren't many weak links.

"But we haven't been able to get them to fall the way I had hoped," he said. "I'm sure glad we did tonight. If we hadn't, we would have been in trouble."

It wasn't merely a matter of having the right people at the line &emdash; six Tornadoes made free throws and five of those six finished in double figures.

The development certainly wasn't lost on Fostoria coach Jim Rutter, whose team has struggled as the little guy among giants in the Great Lakes League.

"We put them on the line 37 times, which is too many," Rutter said. "Now they haven't been a shooting real well from there, only about 60 percent, I think. They hit a whole lot more than that tonight and when that happens, it hurts."

At the outset, this looked like anything but a shootout of 150-plus combined points. The two teams were scoreless through more than two minutes and it wasn't until the 3:05 mark that Fostoria first got on the board. Micheaux Robinson drove for a layup that cut TC's early edge to 8-2.

Once they got their offensive game going, the Tornadoes showed several offensive weapons.

Jason Gottfried tossed in nine in the first quarter to help the Tornadoes to a 15-9 lead. Then, Brad Cox came off the bench to score nine in the first three minutes of the second period to push the margin to 32-20.

Both players would finish the game with 15 points. Meanwhile, the TC ringleader in this one, Todd Focht, had yet to get on the board. Focht's two free throws with 4:21 left in the half were his first points of the night.

But they were the start of something big. He added nine more in the quarter to help the Tornadoes to a 45-29 halftime advantage and he went on to finish with 29 points, including 11-of-12 from the stripe.

"We moved the ball around better in the first half than we have in any game in the past month," Hutchinson said. "That set the tone for us the whole night."

The Redmen weren't able to set theirs until the second half, which, on this night, was a little too late.

"Our first half, we were extremely lackadaisical," Rutter said. "We didn't get after them very well defensively. Offensively, according to our stats, we had two offensive rebounds at halftime. We just didn't get much going.

"We did much better in the second half," he said. "If we penetrate and take the ball to the basket, we're not bad and our perimeter shooters are better. When we rely on jump shots, we're just not as effective. In the second half, we got more penetration and we played much better."

Much of that came from junior point guard Robinson, who finished with 19 points. Classmate Dane Bringman was the top Fostoria scorer with 22, Paul Beeson netted 14 and Jameson Botimer had eight.

The Redmen pulled to within 12 on a couple occasions and had it to 10 at 79-69 with 1:29 to play. But the Tornadoes maintained the edge from there.

"I thought we'd be able to score on them," Hutchinson said. "But I'm disappointed in how many free throws we allowed. We did not do a very good defensively and we definitely did not rebound well &emdash; rebounding has been one of the keys for us this year.

"Micheaux Robinson shot better than we anticipated from the perimeter," he said. "His quickness and Bringman's quickness made them tough to guard. They're both good shooters, but if you get out too far on them, they're quick enough to drive around you."

Nate Nahm, TC's top rebounder with eight, tossed in 11 and Greg Hoke checked in with 10 to complete Columbian's double-figure list.

"We had several guys have their best games of the year tonight," Hutchinson said. "Todd Focht, in his last four games, he's been to the line 43 times. He's doing a good job of getting aggressive offensively. He had his best game tonight, Brad Cox had his best game, Greg Hoke has his best, a lot of guys did.

"For two straight nights, we played hard," he said. "I like that. We haven't had a double weekend in a while, so that was nice to see."

A 30-for-37 night at the line didn't hurt.