Aidan Boyer swished a 3-pointer midway through the third quarter. The game against Fairfield was tied, and Fort Madison High School’s gym was the loudest it had been all night.
Then…
Even Fort Madison coach Ryan Wilson wasn’t sure what happened.
“That’s a good question,” he said.
Fairfield would score the next 22 points, and the Trojans would take a 51-33 win in the Southeast Conference boys basketball opener for both teams on Friday night.
After Boyer’s basket at the 4:26 mark of the third quarter, Fort Madison would not score again until 3:40 left in the game, when Hunter Cresswell scored on a layup.
“We just broke down defensively,” Wilson said. “We didn’t execute.”
Wilson lamented all of the missed points earlier that could have softened the Trojans’ run.
Fort Madison (0-2) trailed 21-18 at halftime after missing six first-half free throws. The Bloodhounds got two chances at the line before the second half even started after Fairfield was called for a technical foul for a scorebook error, but Carson Rashid missed both free throws.
“We go 3-of-13 from the line (for the game), we go 9-of-22 in the paint,” Wilson said. “That’s a lot of easy chances we missed.”
Fairfield (2-2) closed the third quarter on a 10-0 run, then added 12 points in the first three minutes of the fourth.
“Just a lot of contested shots that we took,” Wilson said. “We had good shots at times. But I also think we settled. We’d get in the paint, commit a turnover, and then the next time down it would be like, ‘I’m not going in the paint.’ At least that’s what it felt like.
“Once we got down 12, 15 in the second half, we really started to hang our heads.”
Leif Boeding led Fort Madison with nine points. Cresswell had eight.
Max Weaton led Fairfield with 19 points. Ryan Higgins had 10.
Fort Madison has just two seniors on the roster, and with only two games in the first two weeks of the season, it’s been hard for the Bloodhounds to grow.
That will change with a busy schedule coming up, starting with Saturday’s home game against Mount Vernon.
“We’re a very young team,” Wilson said. “Ninety percent of the minutes tonight were sophomores and juniors. We’ve got to mature. We’re right back in the gym at 9 a.m. tomorrow for a shoot-around, and then we play at 2:30. The best thing for this group is to just play.
“We’ve got to keep our heads up. We’ve got to trust the process. Just keep battling, stick to it.”
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