It’s always the most anticipated weekend of the school year, where hope springs eternal. And Fairfield added to the hope by pulling away with a 29-6 football win over Goshen Friday night.
Bracken Maran rushed for 181 yards and two scores, Blake Metzger added a touchdown run and 75 yards on the ground and the Falcons separated with 21 fourth quarter points.
Sawyer Ernsberger capped the night with a 99-yard interception return for a touchdown, his second pick of the night to go with seven tackles. It was the second straight win over Goshen, and the third win over Goshen in the series dating back to 2015.
The next wave of Falcons also did their part, opening the JV season with a 22-20 overtime win over East Noble.
Boys tennis notched a solid non-conference win by thwarting Bremen, 4-1, at home Thursday afternoon.
Singles swept all their matchups, led by a love, one win from Garrett Stoltzfus over Camden Hickman. Chase Buckholz also won in straights and Cooper LeCount rallied from a set down to win in a super tiebreaker. Matthew Holsopple and Andrew Mathews also won in straight in doubles play while Noah Mast and Brant Garber lost in three sets. JV won 10 of its 12 matchups to open its campaign.
Fairfield split its two matches Saturday at the Northridge Invite, losing to the hosts, 3-2, but topping Valpo, 3-2. Stoltzfus and Buckholz won their matches against Ridge, and Stoltzfus, LeCount and the duo of Mast and Garber won against Valpo, the dubs match the court clincher.
Fairfield’s JV competed Saturday at Penn, beating Ridge, 4-1; Valpo, 3-2; and losing to Penn, 4-1.
Golf found itself in the rain and on the short end of a fifth-woman tiebreaker loss at soggy NorthWood last Monday. Taking the fifth score 58-61, NorthWood claimed the victory as both teams came in at 201 each with their top four scores. Addie Mast led Fairfield with a 44 and Bella Blosser posted a 46 on the rainy McCormick layout.
Opening conference play, Fairfield (201) split Thursday’s trio in a loss to Fremont (192) but a win over Central Noble (250). Mast was medalist with a one-over round of 37 at Meadow Valley.
Volleyball claimed a gritty 3-1 win Tuesday over Fremont in its first home match of the season. Eva Herbert led the offense with 10 kills, Addy Piasecki had five aces and two blocks, Maddy Miller added 30 assists and two aces, and Amanda McGuire had 20 digs out of the back. The JV also beat Fremont, 2-0, led by four kills from Abby Graber, six aces from Gisel Lopez and five assists by Neila Rumfelt.
Fairfield moved to 3-0 on the year by holding off Wawasee, 3-1, on the road Thursday night. Fairfield had 36 kills from the quartet of Herbert, Alice Morrison, Madison Jones and McKenna Fisher, and both Herbert and Fisher each had seven blocks. Miller added 35 assists and McGuire had 17 digs. The JV rolled through Wawasee, 2-0, with 10 assists and two aces from Joya Holsopple.
Cross country headed to Callander Sportsplex Tuesday to take on host NorthWood and Bremen. The Lady Falcons split, edged by NorthWood 28-29 but besting Bremen 21-38. Leading Fairfield was Katie Kuhn in third overall at 22:52 with Natalie Lambright and Lyla Davis both one second behind for fourth and fifth, respectively. Lorelie Shively was a top 10 for the Falcons at 23:30.
On the boys side at Callander, Fairfield dropped both of its duals, to NorthWood 35-20, and to Bremen 30-26. Luke Mast paced Fairfield with an eighth-place time of 18:52 with Ethan Mendoza at 18:55 and Aidan Bender at 19:04 as the top three in for the boys in blue.
Fairfield’s girls won the Lakeland Invite Saturday morning in LaGrange. Results from the race were not immediately provided.