Fairfield Lions spoil SHAC plans of Peebles with 11-point win

LEESBURG — Going into Saturday night's game, the visiting Peebles Indians needed a win to clinch a share of the Division II Southern Hills Athletic Conference championship, and all that stood in their way was the host Fairfield Lions. 

Fairfield — who had three SHAC championships the past three seasons — were not in the running for a share of the crown going into this game, but they did help rival Fayetteville, as the Lions defeated the Peebles Indians 71-60 to continue their surge of strong basketball in recent weeks. 

The loss by Peebles put the Fayetteville Rockets as the outright SHAC Div. II champions with a conference mark of 11-2. The Indians currently sit in second place at 10-3, and the Lions are 9-3 with one SHAC game left on Tuesday night against North Adams. 

“For me, personally, it's a big game. I'm from Peebles. I think most people know that. It's always a big rivalry with us, but it's not like a bad rivalry, and we both have the utmost respect for each other and our programs,” FHS head coach Quentin Williams said. “Josh Arey, I couldn't think of a better coach, honestly, in the Southeast District. He's done so much for me as a person, and I really love him. We come ready to compete and challenge each other. That's what you do when you care about one another. We got the best out of each other tonight, and they got us earlier in the year. We just happened to be on top of the scoreboard tonight.”

The Saturday night game on Valentine’s Day saw the Lions break the hearts of Peebles, starting with an 18-12 first frame where the Lions jumped out to a seven-point lead of 9-2 with a 3-pointer from Griffin Friend, a steal and layup by Brody Smith, and two more baskets from Friend for the lead with 3:35 left in the first quarter. 

Smith led Fairfield with 27 points, finishing the game with five two-point baskets, three 3-pointers, and he was 8-of-11 from the free-throw line. Friend had a big game as well, finishing with 25 points as he made four two-point baskets, two 3-pointers and he was 11-of-12 from the free-throw line. 

Following a 3-pointer from Peebles’ Paxton Ryan, the Lions had a free throw made by Smith at the 2:29 mark and a 12-5 lead. From there, the two teams exchanged baskets on a few occasions, with the Lions leading by six points after the first frame. 

Fairfield outscored the Indians 16-9 in the second, not relinquishing the lead at any point of the game as they opened the second with both teams sinking 3-pointers. Peebles began with a trey from Josh McClary, and he was equaled with a 3-pointer from Smith, and that was followed with a layup by Fairfield’s Zach Ahsaruk. 

After the Indians had a basket by Bo Johnson at the 6:25 mark of the second, the two teams basically had another exchange of baskets for the remainder of the quarter with the Lions at one point scoring back-to-back buckets by Smith, who had four straight points off consecutive turnovers by Peebles for an 11-point lead of 32-21 with 2:07 left in the quarter. 

Those two straight baskets turned into six consecutive points by Smith as the junior sank two free throws in the final minute of the first half for a 13-point halftime lead by Fairfield at 34-21. 

The Lions led 49-36 after three quarters, keeping the 13-point lead. Peebles got as close as seven points to the Lions’ lead with 4:55 left in the third following a 3-pointer by Johnson and a free throw made by Connor Gross. 

Ahsaruk answered those points with a 3-pointer, pushing the Fairfield lead to 10 points with 4:21 left in the third. As the quarter continued, Smith had a three-point play at the 3:16 mark, and that began a 7-0 run for the Lions with Friend making four straight free throws on two combined trips to the free-throw line for a 15-point lead at 48-33 with 1:00 left in the third.

The Lions finished the third quarter with a 13-point advantage at 49-36 and eventually saw that lead increase to as many as 20 points in the quarter with 2:13 left in the game. Peebles got as close as nine points of the Lions’ lead in the final quarters; the last two occasions they did were both because of 3-pointers from McClary. 

The Lions in the fourth had points from Quentin McIntosh, Friend, Smith and Caleb Rice. The fourth included back-to-back 3-pointers from Smith at the 3:30 and 2:55 marks of the quarter for an 18-point lead. McIntosh totaled seven points in the game off three two-point baskets, and he was 1-of-2 in his free throw attempts. 

The 20-point lead came following a layup from Rice with 2:13 on the clock. 

Fairfield finished their final six points of scoring from the free-throw line, with Friend making two free throws on two different occasions, and Smith finished the scoring with two converted free throws with 19.1 left to seal what ended at an 11-point victory. 

Other final scoring totals for Fairfield were: Rice (5), Ahsaruk (5) and Landyn Hoskins (2). As a team, the Lions finished with 20 two-point baskets, seven 3-pointers (Smith 3, Rice 1, Friend 2, Ahsaruk 1), and the Lions were 20-of-25 from the free-throw line. 

“The two-week lull really hurt us a lot, and our first games back were Botkins and Unioto, which are ranked in the state for their division. It's not like the games weren't close or we couldn't have won them, two-possession games, both ways,” Williams said. “In those games, you sometimes question things. But you know, coming back and rebounding the last two games of the SHAC, getting Whiteoak and Peebles and getting back on the right track, was really good for us.

“It's been all year for us. I mean, to be honest, it's hard for us, being a small school, to schedule a lot of teams. The teams that really want to play us now, because of our past, are really good teams, and I'm all for it. Trust me, you're only going to get better. You know the old saying, iron sharpens iron, so we may take some lumps, and we have this year, but we've also come out on several games, and I think it's really going to make us better. From the beginning of the season, it's night and day, to be honest, the confidence, the togetherness, so it's been fun to see the progression.

“Other than the last two minutes where we lost focus, we got up to, I think, a 20-point game, and we thought the game was over, so we talked about it a little bit in the locker room. We can always learn from it. Overall, for a majority of the game, we stuck to our defensive plan, and we did a pretty good job. I wasn't at the first game against Peebles, so I'm just thankful to be on the sidelines and being able to be a part of these kids’ lives and do what I do.”

Peebles’ leading scorer was McClary with 18 points as he had two two-pointers, four 3-pointers, and he was 2-of-2 from the free-throw line. 

Johnson ended the game with 11 points off four two-point baskets and a 3-pointer. The rest of Peebles’ final scoring was: Colyn Sims (5), Grady Knetly (4), Gross (4), Ryan (9) and Keagan Tackett (9). 

PHS totaled 13 two-point baskets, nine 3-pointers, and they were 7-of-10 from the free-throw line. 

BOX SCORE
PHS    12 09 15 24 — 60
FHS    18 16 15 22 — 71

FAIRFIELD (71) — B.Smith 5 (3) 8-11 27, C.Rice 1 (1) 0-0 5, G.Friend 4 (2) 11-12 25, Z.Ahsaruk 1 (1) 0-0 5, L.Hoskins 1 (0) 0-0 2, Q.McIntosh 3 (0) 1-2 7. TOTALS: 15 (7) 20-25 71. 

PEEBLES (60) — C.Sims 1 (1) 0-2 5, G.Knechtly 0 (0) 4-4 4, C.Gross 1 (0) 1-2 4, B.Johnson 4 (1) 0-0 11, P.Ryan 3 (1) 0-0 9, J.McClary 2 (4) 2-2 18, K.Tackett 3 (1) 0-0 9. TOTALS: 14 (8) 7-10 60.