Box Score FAIRFIELD, Conn. – Before the game all the focus was on the Stags' defense trying to shut down the offensive force Iona. After the final horn sounded, all the attention was on the offense of the Fairfield Stags. Casey Smith recorded her first career double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds while the Stags shot 59 percent in the second half to outscore Iona 77-66 at Alumni Hall.
“I'm extremely proud of the efforts of the girls today,” Head Coach Joe Frager said. “We played one of the most gifted teams in the league tonight…We needed this kind of effort to have a shot against a team like that and we really put a lot of facets of our game together tonight.”
“I think in practice we took the Monmouth game to heart,” Smith said. “We realized that we need to rebound more and we need to shoot the ball better…We're in the gym everyday and we need to finish our shots.”
Fairfield (8-12, 7-4 MAAC) outscored the Gaels (11-9, 8-3 MAAC) 44-32 in the second half and held the nation's second leading scorer Damika Martinez to 10 points in the stanza that mattered the most. The 44 second half points was the most the Stags have scored in a single half this season.
After a Smith layup eight seconds into the final period that put the Stags up 35-34, the home team would no trail again. Samantha Cooper's 3-pointer to break a 36-36 tie with 17:58 to play would put the Stags up for good.
Cooper, who finished with a career-high 22 points drained her fourth game-winning shot of the season.
“Sam Cooper I couldn't be anymore proud of,” Coach Frager said. “Sam's really been struggling over the last three or four games. She has been kind of fighting herself emotionally and she just really stepped up in a really big way today. She played with great composure, I know [Associate Head Coach] Laura Scinto has been working with her, I think she's regained some of her confidence.”
The Stags took their biggest lead of the night in showing off one of their most hustled plays of the season. After a missed layup, Smith came cutting over to the middle of the lane, rebounded the missed shot and put it back in unguarded to give the Stags a 70-54 lead with 5:01 remaining.
Smith had arguably the best all around games for a Stags this season and added a career-high six assists to her 20 points and career-high 10 rebounds.
“What can you say,” Coach Frager said. “Really came up big, made some huge baskets for us and really elevated her game today.”
The Stags would hold a double-digit lead for the remainder of the game and held Iona to 66 points, their fewest in a MAAC game this season.
Fairfield improved on every aspect of their game in the contest. After allowing 54 rebounds to Monmouth, the Stags outrebounded the Gaels 35-26, which was tied for the fewest Iona has had in a game this season. Also, Joy Adams who came in as the ninth best rebounder in the country, was limited to seven boards, her third fewest of the season.
On the defensive side, the Stags controlled the pace of the game with 13 steals, five more than they have had in any game this season. Cooper and Schatzlein led the team with three swipes apiece.
The Stags were also disciplined with 22 assists on just 10 turnovers. Smith had a game and career-high six assists on zero miscues.
Fairfield shot 11-14 from the free throw line, led by Cooper's 6-7 performance, the best of her career.
Fairfield, who is the only team in the MAAC to defeat two of the top-three teams, will stay home to try and keep the hot streak going against Monmouth at 2pm on Super Bowl Sunday.
“We're still learning, we're still growing,” Head Coach Joe Frager, who won his 149th game at Fairfield said. “It's easy for our young teams sometimes to put it together for a game, or two but you got to be able to sustain it. That's part of the growth and maturity of knowing how to handle things, being able to go from a big win…we have to shoot the ball better and impose the way we want to play as opposed to letting [Monmouth] dictate how the game is played.”
