Fairfield press overcomes Washington girls

FAIRFIELD - Every one has a bad game at some point. Kids have bad games, referees have bad games and coaches have bad games.

A good team works through it and turns the negative into positive.

Fairfield's press turned a bad game into a 50-26 Southeast Conference girls basketball victory Tuesday.

'It was a strange game,” Fairfield head coach Jeff Miller said. 'We knew what we had to do but that first half, whoa, there was a lot of mistakes and silly plays because we were not mentally focused.”

'I told the kids I did not do a very good job coaching,” Washington head coach Shannon Rugg said. 'Tonight I had a bad game.”

Rugg was called for a technical after an obvious Fairfield foul was not called, then a foul was called on a Demon.

'It was just about frustration,” Rugg said. 'It was a very physical game. We play physical but we're not that team. Tonight was a fairly physical game and that does not bode well for us.”

No one fouled out but with almost 6 minutes remaining in the first half, Washington had been whistled for seven fouls to two for Fairfield. At one point in the second half, it was 10 fouls called on Washington, five for Fairfield.

As Fairfield shot the technicals for a 41-21 lead, players on both teams could be seen talking and smiling with each other.

'I think both teams were just having fun at that point in the game,” said Destiny Gridley, who finished with 16 points, 10 in the second half. 'I have grown up playing against these Washington girls so we know each other pretty well. We get along, especially us seniors. We were laughing and just trying to keep it cool.”

It was downright cold in the first quarter as Washington did not score and Fairfield's first points were a Gridley three with under 3 minutes remaining. Olivia Jones scored later for a 5-0 Fairfield lead at the end of the first quarter.

Anna Nacos made 1-of-2 free throws at the 4:58 mark of the second quarter to get the Demons on the board.

Gridley, who is 6-foot tall, hit another triple to make it 14-3, but Washington closed the half on an 8-3 run to trail 17-11 at halftime.

'My inside out game is something I worked on a lot,” Gridley said. 'There are many shooters out there. There are many tall girls out there that can post up. I put a lot of time and work into my game so that I can do both. All credit goes to my teammates though because they gave me the ball with some great passes. They were amazing.”

Delaney Breen sank a pair of treys and Shay Drish hit one to open a 26-11 lead starting the second half.

The Demons responded to make the score 26-21 with 10 straight points, getting a put-back by Addison Six, a 3-pointer from Josie Tanner and a two and a three from Nacos, who finished with 13, half of the Demon total.

Fairfield closed the third quarter with seven straight points as its full-court pressure started to take effect.

'I feel like our press was a game changer and our defense is what won the game,” Gridley said. 'We have been working on those a lot because our defense has been our weakness. We know that we have a lot of girls that can score on any given night but our defense is what will win us games.”

Washington did not score in the fourth quarter until Nacos converted a drive to the hoop with 4:02 left.

'If you look at our last four games, we have had things go right, but that didn't happen,” Rugg said. 'We got it back down to five in the second half but the press bothered us. Some of that part was our fault because we did not execute the way we wanted to. I thought we look tired from (Monday) night. It just was not our night.”

'Once we got to that press, that seemed to get our motor running a little bit,” Miller said. 'We were kind of feeling it out in the second quarter and then in the third quarter, we figured out what we wanted to do and that was very effective.”

The key to the Trojan defense was limiting Nacos ability to touch the ball.

'We saw her tear through our press and I told the girls we cannot have that,” Miller said. 'So I put Delaney on her and she's a great defender. Then I thought Nacos got a little hesitant when we had a couple girls collapse on her. It was interesting. A conference win as a conference win.”

Washington falls to 11-6, 4-4 and plays at Ft. Madison Friday.

Fairfield is 10-6, 6-1 and plays at conference unbeaten Keokuk Friday. Keokuk won in overtime at Fairfield earlier in the season.