Fairfield, Pekin split games

FAIRFIELD - It was a Jefferson County showdown on Monday night and both the Trojans and Panthers walked out of Fairfield High School with a win. The Fairfield girls dominated 59-23 and the Pekin boys pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 63-51 victory.

The girls game was all Fairfield, helped out by a hot start in the first quarter. The Trojans won the first quarter 19-11, partially due to an eight-point output from Destiny Gridley, including a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to end the period.

'It's been something that we've worked on to go out fresh right from the tip off,” Gridley said. 'That's something we haven't been able to do, so to come out like that was huge.”

Shay Drish scored 13 first half points, and Fairfield held a comfortable 33-12 lead at the break. The Trojans continued to turn it on in the second half, leading 48-20 after three quarters and eventually starting the running clock in the final minutes after going up by over 35.

'We came out firing, the press worked out for us and we have a lot of shooters,” said Trojan head coach Jeff Miller. 'I was really happy on the defensive end and on the rebounding. We played a full game tonight, and when girls came out they were winded. That tells me they are busting when they're out on the floor, and that's really what it takes.”

Drish ended the night with 20 points to lead the team. Gridley scored 12. Delaney Breen had 11. Olivia Jones scored six. Rachel Thomas had four. Danielle Breen, Mallory Lyon and Trisha Westphal each had two.

Pekin was led by Erika Coleman, who scored eight points. Emilee Linder finished the night with seven. Kerrigan Pope scored four. Sofie Wittrock and Sarah Eubanks had two each.

The Pekin boys led 16-13 after one quarter and 27-24 at halftime. Brady Millikin was red-hot in the first half, scoring 13 points for the Panthers.

Fairfield had the game tied at 29-29 in the third quarter but could never grab the lead. J.J. Lane was hot from outside the 3-point arc early and put up 12 points in the second half, but Pekin had points from seven different players in the last two quarters.

Pekin stretched the lead back to five points, at 43-38, going into the fourth quarter. Fairfield made a late run at it but the Panthers hung on with a handful of inside baskets in the final minutes.

'Our mistakes were small ones down the stretch,” Pekin head coach John Swanson said. 'Not getting box outs, not closing out on shooters and just being a little slow in our rotations. It was just a matter of locking in and getting reset.”

For Fairfield, it was their ninth loss by 12 points or less this season, and both wins were by single digits. Head coach Mick Flattery says that could do his youthful team some good.

'A lot of it is the strategy for all the kids, the different defenses we may play, and the different defenses they may play on us,” he says. 'Lord knows we've been in a lot of close games, so our guys are getting used to the strategical part of a lot of timeouts, and drawing up sets offensively or defensively. So it's really, really beneficial when you're a young team. All these close games only make us better.”

The Panthers were led by Kennan Winn, who finished the night with 17 points. Millikin had 15. Nick Tschudy scored 11. Dayne Eckley had eight. Cael Lyle scored six. Brayden Soboski had four, and Brock Long had two.

Lane had 14 points to lead Fairfield. Drew Martin had 13. Carter Ferrel scored nine. Elan Ledger had seven. Nathan Whitney and Blake Holden scored three apiece, and Kyle Jeffrey had two.