With 20 seconds left on the clock and the Rangers only down by 4, the veteran head coach Ken George yelled “Arrow! Arrow!”. FHC’s sharp shooter Ty George gathered himself under the hoop, then darted along the baseline to the three point line. Junior point guard Ryan Dunn dished him the ball, then cut hard to the hoop to try and come up with the offensive rebound if needed. Ty pulled up but missed off the front iron as the clock wound down to 2 seconds. FHC fouled Northview quickly, and the looks on the faces of the Ranger bench told it all. It was just not their night.

The FHC Boys Varsity basketball team lost to Northview 47-42 on Friday night in the hostile Wildcat home territory. A cold night of shooting and a tenacious attack from Northview kept the Rangers chasing for most of the game, but not by much.

The Rangers struggled to convert on offense, missing three pointers, mid-range jumpers, and even contested lay ups down low. Despite a rough night of shooting, FHC played extremely well on defense. Senior guards and team captains Jack Uecker and Sal Sidebotham were playing great man-to-man defense, making it difficult for the Wildcats to get the ball to their shooters. Central’s bigs, John Fuller and Kyle Peirce, were also hanging in tough down low and ended up having a couple of blocks in total through 40 minutes of regulation time.

It did not look like it was going to be a cold night for FHC from the get-go however. Senior forward John Fuller kick started the Rangers with an early three and electrified the Central bench. FHC held a 7-4 lead within the first few minutes of the game, but they never looked the same from that moment forward.

George knew that the Rangers fought hard on both sides of the court, but that it simply was not their day in terms of offensive success.

“[Northview] scored 42 points, which is tied for the season low that we have allowed,” George said, “I have never seen us miss so many shots. The guys were trying to make them, so what do you do? In some sports, you can dominate in other categories and win because of the nature of that sport, but in basketball, you’ve got to make shots. I think it is as simple as that tonight.”

Jack is always a big help to this team on defense, but recognized that things were not going a usual on the offensive end againts the Wildcats. The team captain assigned the blame on the players and noted that they were doing everything else right but couldn’t get their shots to fall.

“It was mainly on us tonight,” Jack said. “We weren’t getting shots to fall, and we had plenty of open ones. Our defense was playing great, but we just couldn’t get it done on offense. We’re going to keep working hard like we always do in practice. We’ve been really tough this season, so we’re gonna keep working.”

It was difficult for George to come up with what to say to his players at halftime, because to him, they were executing well and doing everything that they could against the Wildcats. At half, it was all tied up at 30.

“At halftime a lot of times you can come up with things like ‘we can do this better or that better’, but honestly, I thought we were good,” George said. “But my gosh, we couldn’t score. I didn’t know if the fans thought that or if that was just coaches, but we got a lot of great looks and we couldn’t finish.”

Sophomore Daniel Deindorfer put in some minutes for FHC Friday night and scored on some crucial occasions that helped keep FHC in the fight. His play helped light a fire under the other players. The young center, like Jack, also recognized that they couldn’t finish on open shots, but was very optomistic as to how the game was going to effect the team going forward.

“We’ve got to bounce back and get after it,” Daniel said. “I think our defense has been really good, so we’ve gotta work more on our offense and work on finishing. I’ve gotta work more on shooting and my post up moves. It’s all about getting back in the gym.”