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Demons’ transition offense topples Trojans
Washington breezes to 10th win of season
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Washington boys basketball picked up its second win of the season over Southeast Conference rival Fairfield on Thursday. The Demons finished with their second highest points total of the season in an 81-55 victory at Washington High School.
Fairfield came out strong, but was quickly overrun after going up 12-8 in the first quarter. Washington’s defense held the Trojans to just two points in the final four minutes of the period.
The Demons outscored the Trojans by 10 in the second quarter and took a 45-27 lead into halftime. The quick turnaround came via Washington’s excellent play in transition, where it was able to get easy points on run outs after rebounds and Fairfield turnovers.
“Fastbreak I thought it was one of the better nights we’ve had so far,” Demons coach Collin Stark said. “We started to really get out and run and that continues to open things up when we can really stretch the defense and they have to worry about shooters on the outside. Now all of a sudden we can have that driving lane on that fastbreak.”
Nic Stone scored over 20 points for the second time in three games to lead the Demons. He finished the night with 23, including three made attempts from beyond the arc.
Washington’s transition offense allowed Stone and others to do plenty of damage inside the 3-point line. Drew Conrad finished with 15 points, all coming from 2s or free throws as he was met with little resistance on driving lanes.
“We just call it ‘flow’ where we want to get the ball moving and get bodies moving and setting screens for each other,” Stark said. “We just felt there were some mismatches that our guys could really take advantage of.”
Turnovers overshadowed a relatively productive outing for Fairfield on the offensive end. The Trojans shot an efficient 38.1% from 3-point range, scored 17 points in the third quarter compared to 19 for the Demons and finished with their highest points tally in three games — Fairfield managed just 39 points against Washington on Dec. 12.
However, Fairfield also gave the ball away 19 times, which fueled Washington’s transition offense.
“That really led to them getting a big lead in the first half,” Fairfield coach Nathan Perkins said. “So, it’s the same thing that we preach every day with this group. It’s hard to score points if you don’t take care of the basketball.”
Ethan Bisgard led Fairfield in scoring with 13 points and four assists. Andrew Myers was also in double figures with 12, including a 3 of 5 outing from deep. The Trojans got a nice boost off the bench with Rowan Kness and Jeremy Parker combining for 15 points and four rebounds.
“When we are penetrating and when we are attacking the basket, we look pretty good, and then you get dump-downs and guys scoring,” Perkins said. “We don’t have a lot of size, so we have to move without the basketball, and when they do that they can score. They’ve just got to do that in bunches, not go cold for minutes at a time.”
Fairfield made it a 14 point game with 4:23 left in the third period. But Washington put the clamps on the Trojans offense, holding them to just 16 points for the rest of the game after their strong start to the second half.
Kael Williams finished with 12 points and Rajan Roth scored 10 to round out four double digit scorers for Washington. Tate Greiner and Aidan Schmitz ended the game with five points each and Boden Brown scored 3.
