Washington gets the best of Fairfield

WASHINGTON ? Washington seemed to out-hustle Fairfield to loose basketballs during Friday night?s Southeast Conference game, and that was the key as the Demons defeated the rival Trojans 58-40.

Washington out-rebounded the Trojans 36-18 in the contest.

?It?s a big goal for us to have more rebounds,? Washington junior Lauren Vittetoe said. ?We go after rebounds pretty well. Coach [Phil Long] emphasized that they?re really important.?

Vittetoe grabbed a game-high nine rebounds for the Demons (12-3, 4-1 SEC). Senior Jena Krebs pulled down eight boards, and sophomore Johannah Vittetoe grabbed seven. All three players scored eight points apiece.

?Lauren Vittetoe, Johannah Vittetoe and Jena Krebs were just warriors in there,? Long said. ?They all almost got double-doubles. I challenged Lauren, Johannah and Sydney [Greiner]. I said, ?I?ve got to get more rebounds out of you guys, especially at the offensive end.? I think we ended up with 15 offensive rebounds, and at the same time only gave them four. It was one-and-done for them, and we were getting two or three looks at our end of the floor.?

Fairfield head coach Billy Strickler was disappointed with his team?s effort on the boards.

?We did a horrible job of rebounding,? he said. ?We didn?t make contact with people. We just wanted to jump straight up. We didn?t find bodies and make contact. Rebounding is a lot of basketball. You don?t want to give them those extra opportunities on misses, and we gave them way too many.?

Fairfield (5-10, 1-5 SEC) only trailed by one point midway through the first quarter, but the Demons ended the period with a 15-0 run. Sophomore reserve Lauren Kimball?s 3-pointer at the buzzer gave Washington a 22-6 lead after eight minutes of play.

?I thought the first quarter was as good as we?ve executed offensively all year,? Long said.

Washington led 26-8 early in the second quarter, but the Trojans finished off the half on a 13-3 run. Sophomore Erin Thompson?s two free throws with no time left on the clock trimmed the Demons? lead to 29-21 at the break.

?In the second quarter we kind of went to sleep offensively,? Long said. ?We threw it around and kicked it around and weren?t patient. We didn?t get our shoulders squared up and missed a bunch of bunnies during that stretch. We allowed them to claw their way back into it.?

Fairfield junior Serena Ward drained a 3-pointer to open the second half and cut Washington?s lead to five points, but the Trojans could get no closer. The Demons scored the game?s next 12 points and led by double figures the rest of the way.

?We buried ourselves in that first quarter,? Strickler said. ?That really hurt. The girls did a great job of trying to get back into it. When we got it back to five, we seemed to go cold offensively. Then it just stretched out and we couldn?t get back into it.?

Junior Tori Ogden led the Trojans with 14 points. Sophomore Sidney Baumann added 11 points, and Ward finished with 10.

For complete story, read the Monday, January 24, 2011 Fairfield Ledger.