Versailles too much for Ft. Recovery to handle
Heckman leads the way for Lady Tigers
By George Starks

VERSAILLES- Versailles senior Katie Heckman doesn’t start. In fact, the six foot forward barely plays half the game.

Coming off the bench Thursday against Ft. Recovery, Heckman netted 17 points and pulled down 10 rebounds, half on the offensive glass, putting three back in for scores.

In the end, it all tallied up to a nice 57-39 Midwest Athletic Conference (MAC) victory as the Tigers went to 12-2 overall and 5-0 in the conference.

“Katie had a really nice night tonight,” said head coach Jackie Stonebreaker. “She said it felt really good but she was talking about missing some of her free throws. I told her she’s going to miss sometimes and that’s okay.”

With Heckman on the floor, it adds another dimension to the Tigers attack as the guards look for her on the block.

Heckman also does her job, cleaning the offensive glass for Stonebreaker’s Lady Tigers.

Stonebreaker emphasized the importance of the offensive rebounds in the first half as Versailles held a 36-15 lead at the break.

“I told the girls that we had about seven offensive boards in the first half and five of them we capitalized on scores,” acknowledged Stonebreaker. “If we don’t have those offensive boards in the first half, we don’t have those 10 points and now it’s a 10 point game. Offensive rebounds are so huge for us because it’s a big part of our offense.”

While the Tigers dominated in every aspect of the game, there was one department that was not so pretty.

Holding a 17-5 lead after one, the Indians came out in the second quarter ready to play.

Ft. Recovery went on a 10-2 run to start the stanza, trimming the 12 Tiger lead to 19-15 with 6:06 left in the half.

After Stonebreaker had seen enough, time was called and the Tigers coach said what was needed as Versailles responded by closing out the half on a 17-0 run to hold the 36-15 half-time lead.

In the 32 minutes of play, Versailles committed 25 turnovers.

Not pleasing in the eyes of Stonebreaker.

“We just didn’t take care of the ball,” admitted Stonebreaker. “We just got sloppy. They (FR) got into the passing lanes and got up in our grills and we couldn’t respond very well. They pressured us all the way up the court and I thought we did a nice job handling their press but we just threw it away too many times. Now we put this one behind us and get ready for the next Thursday night (MAC) game.”

Tuesday the Tigers will be home with Ft. Loramie and will travel to Maria Stein next Thursday for a MAC clash with Marion Local.