Fairfield girls topple Washington

WASHINGTON -- Fairfield picked up a big conference win against Washington Friday night on the road, 59-35.

After coming off a tight loss earlier in the week to Oskaloosa, Fairfield knew they had to bounce back.

“Our kids bounced back,” Fairfield head coach Pat Pacha said. “It’s the first game on the road, it’s a conference game. It’s a big win. You gotta win these games if you’re going to compete for the conference.”

The Trojans controlled the pace for much of the matchup. Straight out of the gates, Fairfield went on 8-0 run over the first five minutes of the game. At the quarter’s end, Fairfield held a 12-4 lead.

In the second, the Demons showed no sign of giving up. Within the first two minutes they had cut into the Fairfield lead making it 12-9.

Washington clawed and fought, as they found themselves with the majority of the second chance points throughout the contest.

“You know things we were working on in practice we were seeing in games,” Demon head coach Shannon Rugg said. “We stepped back and said these are things we’re going to do. I felt that we did that. I thought defensively we did exactly what we wanted to do. Offensively, we gotta take better care of the ball and we gotta knock down some shots. We got to get that consistency out of the five out on the floor and we’ll get there, the girls are working hard. There we huge strides tonight.”

The Trojans eventually pulled away in the quarter, as the Demons struggled to find their shot, while Fairfield’s offense started to click, finding easy buckets inside the paint.

With a 20-11 second quarter, Fairfield went into the locker room with a 32-15 lead.

In the second half, the game was tight, with Fairfield outscoring Washington 27-20, but the damage had already been done for the Demons.

Fairfield outscored Washington 14-10 in the third, and in the fourth the numbers were nearly identical, 13-10 favoring the Trojans.

Fairfield’s Delaney Breen showed off her scoring once again, ending the contest with 20 points on 8-12 shooting.

Danielle Breen finished with 12 points, five rebounds and four assists. Savannah Hollander came off the bench and contributed 11 points.

Anna Dunlap added eight. Mallory Lyon had five. Brynley Allison chipped in two and Kelsey Pacha one.

Makenna Conrad led the Demons with 11 points. Kaylin Long added eight. Alex Murphy finished with seven. Lauren Hinrichsen chipped in five and Elyse Hunt had four.

Comments: hunter.moeller@southeastiowaunion.com