Fairfield posts triple digits in victory

Four Fairfield girls scored in double figures, including 21 points from Nicole Buch and 20 from Sami Fritz, to lead Fairfield to breathtaking 60-point victory in the Trojans? home opener against Oskaloosa 103-43.

?Teams can take two directions after a loss like the one we had to Waterloo West,? said Fairfield head coach Mick Flattery. ?Either you can say ?It?s just a game and the loss doesn?t matter,? or you say, ?We should have won that game,? and you take it out on the next team, which is a good thing.

?I was really tickled that our girls always had the mentality that every quarter and every half starts 0-0 and to never play down.?

Brooke McLain converted a 3-point play for Fairfield after a layup and foul with less than a minute remaining to make it 97-43.

With a running clock and time winding down, the crowd and the Trojan starters on the bench got loud and kept the tempo high, and Brynna Bowman?s 3-pointer with 27.5 seconds left pushed the scoreboard to 100 points, something that hasn?t happened in Fairfield since the six-person girls? basketball teams.

?We knew when she let that one go,? said Buch. ?The crowd reacted like it was a last-second shot and everyone got so excited. It was such a huge moment. Since we?ve been watching Fairfield basketball, we can?t remember anyone scoring 100, so that was really cool.?

Twelve of the Trojans? 13 players scored on the night, something that Flattery hopes to see a lot more of this season.

?When I coached the boys? team, I knew the toughest games we played were the teams that averaged 14 / 14 / 12 over the ones that were 25 / 10,? he said. ?The good thing about our girls is that they are team-oriented, they don?t care who gets the credit as long as Fairfield gets the win. They?ve been taught to always go hard and see if they can be that person that night.

?But, tonight?s just one night, it?s history, it?s in the history book and Mt. Pleasant could care less on Friday.?

?Teams will need five good defenders on the court all the time to stop us,? said Fritz. ?It makes it really tough for other teams to guard us, and we showed what we can do today. It?s a good start to the season, but there are always things to improve on and we?ll do that.?

Fairfield will open conference play Friday in Mt. Pleasant and the Trojans won?t be taking their SEC rivals for granted after breaking the century mark.

?It?s always a great rivalry and we have to be ready to go because they will be hungry to get after us,? said Flattery. ?We have to be better in practice tomorrow than we were tonight and try to be the best we can be every day. We?ll get back to fundamentals in the morning and have three good practices.

?I?m sure the girls will be ready to go Friday night.?