FAIRFIELD, Conn. – A 47-point outburst in the second half of Saturday's game at Sacred Heart flipped a three-point halftime deficit to a 67-57 win for Fairfield University Men's Basketball. Jalen Leach led a balanced scoring attack with a game-best 15 points.
 
The win is the third straight for the Stags – all on the road against teams selected to win their respective conferences in the preseason (Rider, Yale, Sacred Heart). Fairfield stands at 4-6 on the campaign, and also improves to 10-0 all-time against the crosstown Pioneers. Sacred Heart slips to 4-7 with the loss.
 
"We don't place emphasis on one game over another – they're all big, especially on the road," said Interim Head Coach Chris Casey. "I'm proud of these guys for grinding it out in the second half. We said going in that it wasn't going to be a pretty game and we need to just grind, and to grind better than they do."
 
Leach's 15 points included three of Fairfield's eight three-pointers. The Stags shot 1-for-10 from distance in the first half but bounced back with a 7-for-10 showing beyond the arc after halftime.
 
"Our ball movement was better in the second half; we also got some stops and got out in transition in the second half, and that opened up some of those threes," said Casey. "When you have good shooters, you just keep shooting. I thought we took good shots in the first half and they weren't falling. So just keep taking good ones and they'll start to drop."
 
Brycen Goodine added two three-pointers on his way to 10 points, and Jasper Floyd canned the only triple that he attempted en route to 10. Floyd filled out his statline with seven rebounds, five assists and three steals.
 
Louis Bleechmore posted nine points and matched Floyd's team high of seven rebounds. The duo of Peyton Smith and Caleb Fields each pitched in eight points apiece and James Johns Jr. had six.
 
Rounding out the scoring was Birima Seck, who made his Fairfield debut and scored one point. Seck also grabbed a rebound and recorded one assist and one blocked shot in six minutes of work after missing the first nine games of the campaign due to injury.
 
Fairfield won the rebounding battle, 39-29 – the first Division I opponent that the Stags outrebounded this season. The effort led to 14 second chance points to Sacred Heart's 11. Fairfield also outpaced the Pioneers in fast break points, 14-10. The hosts had the edge in bench points, 23-17, and points in the paint by a 26-24 count.

Sacred Heart was led in scoring by Raymond Espinal-Guzman was 11 points.
 
The Stags opened the game at 1-for-10 from the floor as the Pioneers opened up an 8-4 lead. A Floyd layup and back-to-back buckets from Johns quickly put Fairfield on top, 10-8, but the only two Sacred Heart three-pointers of the period sparked the hosts to an 15-1 run to claim the first significant lead of the contest at 23-11 with 5:50 to play in the half. The Stags responded with a pair of Smith scores down low and a transition trey from Bleechmore to cut the deficit to 23-18 and induce a Pioneers' timeout with 3:05 left before the intermission. The stoppage slowed the Fairfield offense but did not deter the defensive pressure as the Stags tacked on two more on a Goodine layup while keeping Sacred Heart at bay to head into the locker room facing a one-possession deficit, 23-20.
 
After scoring 20 points over the first 20 minutes of action, the Stags needed less than half that time to tack on 20 more after the break. The effort was fueled by five three-pointers – two from Leach, one by Fields, one by Floyd, and a transition trey for Goodine to run the Fairfield lead to 40-33 and force a Sacred Heart timeout with 10:31 to play. Another Leach triple staked Fairfield to a double-digit lead for the first time, and Goodine connected on another to maintain that edge at 48-38 with under eight minutes remaining. The Pioneers would climb back to within points late at 58-53, but the Stags had a response for every Sacred Heart surge to close out the 67-57 win.
 
The Stags return to the action and return to the Leo D. Mahoney Arena on Sunday, Dec. 17 for a 2 p.m. visit from Wagner. Tickets are on sale now at FairfieldStags.com/TIX.