By Pete Janny (@pete_janny)
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — Jay Young sat in the press conference with a look that didn’t suggest his team had just lost its fourth Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference game in six tries.
That’s because Young’s Stags team played Iona without any quit Friday before eventually falling, 75-69, on a night Fairfield was without lead guard Caleb Fields, who was sidelined due to a hip injury.
The “airport” team, which Young dubbed Iona as a reference to its tantalizing athleticism, simply made a couple more plays down the stretch to win it. Fairfield won’t sweat it, but will just try to learn from it instead.
“They made five threes on us in the second half, (and) I’m probably going to look at the tape and want a few plays back,” Young said. “We've got to get better, but I was proud of the way we competed tonight.”
Those five Iona threes were a killer for Fairfield, with the last big blow coming off a triple by Cruz Davis which extended the Gaels’ lead to seven with 3:58 to play. Cruz had three of them, and Anton Brookshire had a strong second half including one of those threes. The closest Fairfield got from there was four back with 45 seconds left on a mid-range shot by fifth-year guard Jake Wojcik. Consequently, the final two tallies came at the charity stripe for Iona’s Daniss Jenkins to seal the official scoreline.
The biggest and brightest development for Fairfield was Wojcik’s 16-point, seven-assist, six-rebound performance. Wojcik, who was named a preseason third team all-MAAC selection, has been missing for most of the season and has easily been the most disappointing Stags player with no Fairfield player even running a close second. Coming into the game, Wojcik was shooting just 15 percent from long distance, and hadn’t scored in double digits this season. According to Young, Wojcik has been doing all the right things to improve, while waiting for a game like Friday’s to finally come.
“I’m hoping this was the game for him to turn the corner offensively,” Young said of Wojcik, who eclipsed the 1,000-point mark Friday. “He’s been doing a good job for us defensively all year and competing through some very difficult shooting slumps, so I’m proud of the way he’s competed.”
On Friday night, he entered the scoring books with a three that put his team ahead, 14-12, at the 11:23 mark of the first half. Wojcik and the Stags continued to battle with Iona, enduring 15 lead changes in the first half before Wojcik delivered a rainbow three at the buzzer which sent Fairfield into the break with a 34-32 lead. The veteran guard had more tricks up his sleeve in the second half, doing his damage from mid-range and deep, helping keep the Stags within striking distance of Iona after the home team retook the lead on a 12-4 run out of halftime. When Wojcik wasn’t looking to shoot, he was busy compiling a career-high seven assists. He did a good job finding Supreme Cook to establish an inside presence for Fairfield against the physically gifted Iona front court of Nelly Junior Joseph and Osborn Shema. Wojcik’s last feed came on a clever inbounds pass that found TJ Long for a three with 58 seconds left and cut the deficit to five, which was the Stags’ last hurrah.
The matchup between Cook and Junior Joseph was an intriguing one on paper, and lived up to the hype. Junior Joseph held advantages on the stat sheet with 17 points and 10 rebounds, but Cook did more than carry his weight as he added 14 points on an efficient 7-of-11 shooting.
“That’s a war down there and those guys fought all night,” Young said. “It reminded me of some Big Ten games when the big guys would just wrestle.”
Fairfield simply ran out of time and was unable to edge out the Gaels like it did in the first half. Iona was unable to hit on Fairfield’s pressure point by using the athleticism of its guards to frustrate the Stags defensively. The guards attacked the Stags, especially down the stretch of the second half, with Jenkins, Brookshire and Berrick JeanLouis combining for 39 points on the night. At times, Iona showed off its impressive physical traits with a couple of dunks that got the Hynes Center crowd into it.
“They’ve got guys everywhere who look like players and their bodies are good,” Young said of Iona’s athleticism. “They’re obviously a really talented basketball team with a lot of weapons that keep coming at you.”
The road battle marked an interesting return to reality for Fairfield, who went 44 days without a road game, including having four of its five MAAC games coming at Mahoney Arena. On Friday night, Fairfield was up against one of the most convincing home court advantages in the country for Iona. The Gaels are tied with Jacksonville with 21 straight home wins, the four best mark in the country. Fairfield hung around, but just couldn’t get stops when they needed them. Often times this season, it has been the Stags offense that has held them back, but Friday night proved to be the opposite while working with a razor-thin margin of error against Iona.
“Second-half defense has been a problem for us all year,” Young said when asked about his team’s late-game struggles. “We have to fix that end of the floor.”
The last few games have also afforded some key insights for Young about his personnel, as the Stags enter a stretch of four of their next six on the road. This includes the recent play of Long and him showing flashes of the player most followers of the Fairfield program expected after his strong freshman campaign in which he shot 40 percent from deep. Initially, Fields was the de facto second-half player for Fairfield, but Long has assumed that mantle full throttle now with Fields dealing with his injury. Long had nine points in the second half to help keep the upset bid alive. As for Fields, Young doesn’t sound too concerned and he is a gametime decision heading into Sunday’s game at Saint Peter’s.
“The MRI looked good, but he’s pretty sore,” Young told reporters after the game about Fields’ status, while also acknowledging that Brycen Goodine is “highly unlikely” to return this season.
Fairfield hits the road again to close out the season series with Saint Peter’s on Sunday afternoon, with Stags looking for a sweep of the Peacocks. While a little banged up, and despite losing three straight, Young is confident in his team’s chances on the road after racking up so many away games earlier this season.
“There’s no team in the country more prepared on the road, we started with eight of them,” said Young, whose team is 0-6 in true road games and won on a neutral court against Towson. “We’ve just got to get over the hump.”
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