Fairfield Lions control pace against rival Whiteoak Wildcats

MOWRYSTOWN — In a Southern Hills Athletic Conference matchup between rivals, the Fairfield Lions completed most aspects of their game the way they planned. Their game plan went as they wanted, and for that success, they were able to gain a conference victory Tuesday night against a Highland County rival.

That rival was the Whiteoak Wildcats, and in their game at WHS against the visiting Lions, WHS was unable to recover from a first frame that didn’t go their way. In the process, the Lions built a 20-point halftime lead and eventually rolled to a 78-61 victory over their Division II SHAC counterpart.

Fairfield broke away from the Wildcats early on, even though it was Whiteoak who scored the first points of the game with a basket by Trevor Yeager. But after FHS tied the score with two points from Jensen Daulton (via two free throws) and took the lead off two more points by Daulton with 5:37 left in the first quarter, the Lions didn’t trail for the remainder of the game. Daulton led all scorers with 21 points. He finished with four two-point baskets, three 3-pointers and was 4-of-4 from the free-throw line.

Daulton scored nine of his 21 points in the opening frame.

“We talked about attacking the paint (Tuesday),” Fairfield head coach Everett Snyder said. “A lot of times we settle for a three-point shot, and even though we were hitting some early on, our game plan was to still attack the paint.

“We noticed they had a couple non-traditional starters, and we thought we could get (Wyatt) Harris and Jesse (Current) the ball down inside.”

In fact, the Lions went on an 8-0 run, with the rest of the scoring from the first eight points scored by FHS coming from a jumper by Ethan Putnam and points in the paint by Wyatt Harris for what was a lead of 8-2. Harris totaled 14 points in the win, executing tough post play the entire four quarters. Harris made seven two-point baskets. Putnam totaled 11 points in the win.

As the quarter continued for the Lions, they built an 11-6 advantage with more points by Daulton and with 2:23 left in the first quarter, Klay Walker added two points from the free-throw line. The Lions’ lead went to 19-8 by the time the first quarter expired with a 3-pointer by Walker (who totaled eight points overall) and another 3-pointer, this one by Daulton with 1:04 left on the scoreboard.

The Wildcats and Lions exchanged baskets in the second, and following a 3-pointer from Whiteoak’s Chase Carraher with around five minutes remaining in the quarter, WHS trailed by just nine points at 25-16. Carraher finished with nine points in the loss, while the leading scorer for the Wildcats was Brandon Ashbaugh with 18 points. He was followed by Yeager with 14 points.

In the second frame, Carraher tallied eight of the 12 points scored by the Wildcats, while the Lions totaled 21 points in the second, taking a 40-20 halftime lead. Fairfield had two 3-pointers in the second (Putnam, Daulton), and Jesse Current (who started for Wyatt Evans, who missed the game with an illness) scored five points in the quarter.

Harris had his best quarter of the game with eight points, as that allowed the Lions to take the 20-point lead into halftime. The second frame ended with the aforementioned 3-pointer from Putnam at the buzzer.

“Wyatt had one of his best games of the season,” Snyder said. “Getting the big lead early on gave us a chance to to do some things offensively. We ran around 10 offenses against their man offensive set. We’ve had some games recently where teams just ran a zone against us, so we needed to get back to where we could run the offensive set against a man.”

As for Current, he finished with 15 points in his start, and that didn’t go unnoticed by Coach Snyder.

“Jensen had an excellent game,” he said. “He had some nice assists to Wyatt (Harris) and found the open big men. We were also good from the free-throw line. But Jesse got the start, and he came in and played a good game.”

The second half saw the Lions score another 21 points in the third frame, but WHS responded with a 20-point third quarter of their own, and in the fourth quarter, WHS outscored the Lions, 21-17.

In the third, Daulton added another 3-pointer for the Lions, and in the fourth frame, Cody Gragg connected with a shot from beyond the arc for Fairfield. In the third, Whiteoak had eight of their 20 points scored by Ashbaugh and four points from Yeager. Yeager sank two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter.

For the game, WHS was 13-of-14 from the free-throw line, and the Lions were 10-of-11.

Both teams are back in action on Wednesday, as they are each playing a makeup game, with the Lions traveling to face North Adams in a SHAC contest, and the Wildcats are hosting the Clinton-Massie Falcons of the South Central Ohio League.

In freshman play Tuesday, the Wildcats defeated Fairfield, 50-49. C. Taylor led FHS with 16 points, and WHS was led by Tre Hamilton with 15 points.

The JV game saw the Lions defeat the Wildcats, 49-36. Dylan Ison led WHS with 17 points, and Brandon Case was the leading scorer for the Lions with 11 points.