Warriors’ Season-Opener One To Build On
SYRACUSE — A loss is a loss, but as those go, Wawasee’s season-opening, 51-40 defeat at the hands of visiting Fairfield Tuesday night wasn’t all that bad.
With a mostly inexperienced lineup playing an opener against an unscouted team, the Warriors did a lot of things right. It was only a couple of runs by the Falcons that really made the difference, and Wawasee head coach Jon Everingham saw some things his team could build on.
“We’ve got a lot of inexperienced players so I told them I’ve never felt this good after being a part of a losing game as I felt tonight,” said Everingham. “Because we’re young, but we encouraged each other out there tonight. The intangibles I thought were our strength, I thought showed tonight. We really scrapped out there. We played hard. We’ve just got a lot of things to work on offensively.”
The two teams traded leads eight times over a back-and-forth first quarter before an 11-0 run spanning from Skylar Mast’s lay-in at the 1:33 stop of the first frame to Cordell Hofer’s fast break lay-up at the 5:08 stop of the second put Fairfield (1-0) in the driver’s seat for good. Wawasee (0-1) answered back with a quick 5-0 spurt of its own capped off by Austin Miller’s wing 3 following a Bennett Hoffert steal and swing pass that cut the Warriors’ deficit to 22-19, but the Falcons stretched their advantage back out to two possessions when Mast answered with a triple from the top of the key with 38 seconds remaining in the half. A quick 4-0 start to the second half pushed Fairfield back out to a double-digit lead at 29-19, and the Falcons kept it there pretty much through the remaining two periods of play.
Everingham would’ve liked to have one of those last possessions of the first half back.
“We were down three with about 45 seconds to go in the first half. I thought that was a huge possession, and I don’t think the guys quite heard me; I didn’t communicate well enough,” he recalled. “I might have used a timeout there in trying to keep that within three points because they come down, they hit a huge 3 to end the half and then they opened up with one of their set plays and scored a 2. That’s the (seven)-nothing run that really, really hurt us.”
Wawasee could do little to slow the Falcons’ offense as Fairfield connected at a 18-of-29 (62.1 percent) clip from the floor at the Hardwood Teepee, led by Mast’s 17 and Hofer’s 14. And when they weren’t converting from the field, the Falcons were making the most of 14 trips to the line, making all but two of their charity tosses. Hofer knocked down 8 of 9 free throws himself drawing contact on the inside.
“We made a few mistakes with him and turning to his left shoulder, but he’s a good player. He’s a good, strong player,” said Everingham of Hofer. “He initiates the contact and in a lot of cases when you are the aggressor you get the benefit of the doubt with the officials. I thought tonight even when we went to the basket, we were kind of shying away from contact, and Cordell did a great job of drawing fouls and getting to the free throw line. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Wawasee did much of its damage from beyond the arch, meanwhile, as the Warriors hit six 3-pointers at the game, including 5 of 15 before the intermission. With Fairfield having no choice but to respect the 3, the home team tried to work outside-in in the second half but couldn’t find enough interior offense to make up the difference. Aaron Evans finished with a team-high 14, and Miller chipped in 13 for the Warriors, who finished at a 16-of-46 (34.8 percent) conversion rate from the floor.
“We don’t have real quick guys so we can’t really do that off the dribble. Oddly enough we have to utilize that 3-point shot to kind of loosen the defense up,” explained Everingham. “I thought we did that; it’s just we didn’t take advantage of that kind of getting to the bucket. That’ll be the trick moving forward, and we’ll learn how to do that.”
Also Tuesday night, Wawasee’s JV couldn’t hold off its Fairfield counterparts in a 36-31 loss.
The Warriors resume play at Angola Saturday night. Varsity tip-off is slated for 7:30 p.m.