Box Score FAIRFIELD, Conn. – One of the keys Head Coach Joe Frager told the team before the game was 'Show Me Your Heart Tonight' and for 30 minutes the Stags grabbed every 50/50 ball, dominated the boards, and quietly stunned the Marist offense. But in the end, the composure and poise of the nine-time defending MAAC Champions Marist overtook the Stags as Fairfield dropped a 56-50 decision to the Red Foxes.
“This one hurts,” Coach Frager said. “Our kids played very hard. I was really happy with our effort tonight, I thought they showed a tremendous amount of heart and desire. We did a tremendous job defensively in the first half, probably couldn't play much better defense than we did. Marist is a tough team to guard, they run a motion offense as well as anybody.”
The Stags (12-15. 11-7 MAAC) led by as many as 17 points with 15:46 remaining in the second half, but Madeline Blais, who came in as one of the MAAC's top shooters, shot 9-10 in the second half including 5-6 from behind the arc for 24 second half points. Fairfield limited the sharpshooter to a 0-3 shooting clip in the first stanza.
“They did a really good job freeing Maddy Blais,” Frager said. “I think we got a bit rattled and we lost her. Credit to her, whenever she had a sliver of an opening she knocked the shot down and they played with a great compsure.”
Fairfield took the double-digit lead after playing perhaps their best defensive half of the season. The Stags held the Red Foxes (18-9, 14-4 MAAC) to a 4-23 shooting clip and just ten points, both numbers were season-lows for Marist. The 10 points was also the fewest for the Red Foxes in over a decade (1999-2000 MAAC Tournament).
The Stags out-rebounded Marist 26-17 in the opening 20 minutes, including 9-3 on the offensive glass. Combine that with forcing seven turnovers on just one assist for Marist (who came in as the 24th best team in the country in assist-turnover ratio) and you have the recipe for an upset.
“Very happy about that,” Frager said. “That's something we really talked about extensively. The 50/50s that's not a matter of physical ability that's a matter of heart and desire. One of the keys was show me your heart tonight, and they did that.”
The Stags took a 16-2 lead in the first half, and held Marist without a point for the first eight minutes of the game.
However, the Stags only led 22-10 at halftime, after hitting just two field goals in the final 9:43 of the half which could have been the difference in the game.
Fairfield took their largest lead, 31-17, after a Kristin Schatzlein 3-pointer. Schatzlein had a breakout game, recording her second career double-double and shooting 50 percent from behind the arc.
It would take Marist just seven minutes to erase that deficit after a Blais 3-pointer in transition made the score 39-38 with 8:26 left.
Fairfield would not see the lead again but they kept fighting. Layups from Felicia DaCruz and Kelsey Carey cut the deficit to two with 31 seconds to play.
DaCruz did a nice job all night in cutting to the basket and finding holes, and finished with eight first half points. But with the team down two, DaCruz drove the lane and had her shot rejected by Tori Jarosz which would ice the game.
“You just try and coach them through it,” Frager said. “When you try and simplify things as much as you can for them because when things start going poorly, the game tends to speed up on a young player. As a coaching staff you just try and keep it as simple as you can out there to try and help them regain their composure.”
Fairfield had more field goals than Marist (21-19) but Marist took advantage of their 14 trips to the foul line and made 12 of those shots.
Kelsey Carey had nine points while Felicia DaCruz had five assists and is now five dishes away from cracking the top-10 in program history.
Fairfield will now travel to Iona which will have a playoff type atmosphere as the Thursday night game will tipoff at 7pm.
