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IRONTON — Still state-ranked, still undefeated and still sitting at the top of the Ohio Valley Conference.
CREDIT: Derrick Webb/SOSA
That’s where Fairland’s girls basketball program sits.
On Dec. 19, the Dragons took home a 61-50 win over conference rival Rock Hill … and didn’t exactly feel good about it. But if you fast forward to Thursday night, those demons have been exorcised.
After back-and-forth action in the first quarter, Fairland (20-0, 14-0 OVC) pulled away to display a dominant performance in a 67-35 victory — one that clinched the outright league crown and marked the team’s 37th consecutive conference win.
“I’ll be honest with you, we felt like our half-court defense against their half-court offense was a good matchup for us,” Fairland coach Jon Buchanan said. “But a big part of what we do is speeding the game up and a big part of that is pressing. So early, it was back and forth because we were spacing our guard defense out because we were pressing. But once we backed up, I think [Rock Hill] might’ve scored 25 points the rest of the game.”
Per usual, the Dragons’ scoring was spread out. Led by Kam Barnitz’ 17 points, the team had eight players score four or more.
That’s just the latest episode in that series. In all 20 wins, Fairland has displayed next-level balance.
“There’s a lot of teams that box-and-one other teams, but it’s hard to play that defense on us,” Buchanan said. “We don’t worry about who our leading scorers are but we’ve had at least six different leading scorers this year. That’s common for us. So you really can’t guard one particular person on this team. If you take someone away, someone else steps up. We just try to spread it around and make it hard to guard everyone on the court.”
Tale of the tape
Rock Hill’s Jlynn Risner scored the game’s first bucket before scoring again with 7:02 left, followed by a bucket from teammate Hazley Matthews at the 5:47 mark, which gave the Redwomen (16-5, 12-2 OVC) an early 6-3 lead.
Then, with 5:14 to go, Lola Hankins tacked on a triple to put Rock Hill ahead by a 9-5 tally.
PHOTOS: Images from Fairland’s win over Rock Hill
Fairland’s Bailey Russell answered with a triple of her own before Addison Godby gave the Dragons a 10-9 lead. From there, the two teams traded buckets throughout the rest of the first quarter before Godby and Isa Taliaferro ended the first on a 5-0 run, putting Fairland up 17-13.
In the second, the Dragons began to create separation while switching defenses.
As Buchanan alluded to, Fairland switched out of a press into a half-court defensive set. That made life extremely hard on Rock Hill’s offense. In fact, the Redwomen went nearly eight minutes without adding points to the board.
“We wanted to make everything they did hard to do,” Buchanan said. “We wanted to challenge every shot, and when they drove to the rim, we wanted to have an extra defender there. I thought we did a great job of that.”
Meanwhile, the Dragons showed no signs of slowing down. They were just getting started.
Barnitz buried a 3 just before Bree Allen followed suit for a 23-13 advantage. Godby then scored with 3:26 remaining, capping a 13-0 run and making it a 25-13 tally.
Put simply, Rock Hill never recovered.
By halftime, Fairland had taken a 36-18 lead following back-to-back buckets from Russell, a 3 from Tomi Hinkle and a floater from Isa Taliaferro.
The Dragons began the second half with a bucket from Kylee Bruce and a 3 from Barnitz, making it 41-18. When Bruce hit a 3 with 6:04 left, making it 44-18, the Dragons started celebrating an outright league championship early.
Stat book
Following Barnitz’ game-high 17 points was Russell, who finished with 11 points, six rebounds and a pair of assists. Godby had nine points, a game-high 12 rebounds and four helpers, Hinkle added eight points, seven rebounds and four assists, and Allen had seven points, 10 boards and three assists.
Matthews led Rock Hill with 10 points while Hankins added nine points. Risner tallied six points, eight rebounds and two assists, and Hayden Bailey finished with eight points.
What’s on tap
While Rock Hill now looks towards a tournament run, which starts on Feb. 18 against either Alexander or Federal Hocking, Fairland still has two regular season dates left.
The Dragons, who are the top seed in their district, host Spring Valley (W. Va.) on Saturday before meeting with Russell (Ky.) on Feb. 11.
That creates two chances to get to where they want to be before their postseason begins.
“Both of those teams are really good and we designed it that way,” Buchanan said. “We wanted to really challenge ourselves. We wanted to face everything we possibly could before the tournament. It’s about how much we can do to get ready for the tournament.”
BOX SCORE
Fairland: 17-19-17-14 — 67
Rock Hill: 13-5-6-11 — 35
Fairland: 27-66 FG, 5-6 FT, 8-33 3pt., 44 rebounds (Godby 12), 13 turnovers, 16 assists (Hinkle 4, Godby 4). Scoring: K. Barnitz 17, Russell 11, Godby 9, Hinkle 8, Allen 7, Taliaferro 6, Bruce 5, R. Barnitz 4.
Rock Hill: 15-50 FG, 3-6 FT, 1-8 3pt., 16 rebounds (J. Risner 8), 10 turnovers, 5 assists (J. Risner 2, H. Risner 2). Scoring: Matthews 10, Hankins 9, Bailey 8, J. Risner 6, Easterling 2.
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