ALBANY, N.Y. – Fueled by a dazzling 40-point game for Brycen Goodine – only the fourth 40-point performance in Fairfield University Men's Basketball history – the Stags rolled to a 93-69 win at Siena on Friday evening in Albany. The victory marked the seventh straight for the Stags, who also got 19 points and seven rebounds from Jalen Leach.
 
"[Brycen] just got into a zone, and our guys recognized that, and they were looking for him. It's been different guys on different nights for us, and tonight was his night," said Interim Head Coach Chris Casey. "We also really buckled down on the defensive end of the floor, we got stops when we needed them in the second half and our defensive rebounding improved after a rough start. Brycen gets the headlines tonight, and that's well deserved, but it was another full team effort by our guys to get a big conference road win."
 
Goodine's 40-point day came on 13-for-18 shooting from the field, including an 8-for-12 showing from three-point range, and a 6-for-8 game at the free throw line. It was the third 40-point game in Division I this season and the 10th from a player coming off the bench since 2010-11.
 
He matched the 40 points scored by Chris Rivers on Feb. 12, 2001 in a win over Canisius. George Groom had 41 points against Assumption on March 6, 1972, and the current program record belongs to Curtis Cobb with 46 points in a win at Manhattan on Jan. 5, 2017.
 
With the win, Fairfield improves to 8-6 overall and 2-1 in the MAAC. Siena drops to 2-12 on the season with a 1-2 MAAC tally. Coupled with last season's win at MVP Arena, the Stags have won back-to-back games in Albany against the Saints for only the third time in program history. Fairfield also wins its first game of the new calendar year for the first time since 2017.
 
As a team, the Stags shot 32-for-55 (58.2%) from the floor sparked by a blistering 19-for-17 (70.4%) performance in the second half. The scoring was supplemented by nine points from James Johns Jr. – making his first start of the campaign – with Peyton Smith and Caleb Fields each adding seven. Birima Seck had four points, Louis Bleechmore added three and Matt Curtis had a pair to round out Fairfield's highest scoring game of the season.
 
In addition to Leach's team-high seven rebounds, Johns hauled in six and Fields nabbed four. Fields also had five of the Stags' 14 assists and swiped a career-best six steals as a part of Siena's 15 turnovers. Fairfield protected the ball to the tune of just seven turnovers.
 
The turning point of the game came midway through the first half, after the Stags had fallen behind, 20-13, with 9:55 left in the frame. Fairfield outscored the Saints by a 28-8 count for the remainder of the period, with Goodine accounting for 14 of those 28, to take a 41-28 lead into the locker room.
 
Siena only came within single digits once in the second half, with Leach promptly scoring on back-to-back possessions to quell the threat. Goodine tallied 26 of Fairfield's 52 points after halftime as the lead grew as large as 30 in the 93-69 win.

The 24-point victory was Fairfield's largest over a Division I opponent since a 78-49 win over Manhattan on Jan. 31, 2017. The Stags' seven-game winning streak matches a seven-game streak from the 2017-18 season that encompassed the last four games of the regular season as well as Fairfield's three postseason wins en route to the MAAC Championship Game.
 
Fairfield's last winning streak of eight games or more was an 11-game run during the 2010-11 season.
 
The Stags are back in action on Sunday, Jan. 7 at Leo D. Mahoney Arena against Marist. The Red Foxes were idle tonight and most recently dropped a 65-58 decision to visiting Lehigh to fall to 7-4. Marist is 2-0 in the MAAC with a road win at Iona and a home victory over Manhattan on their conference ledger.