Boys basketball opened the week for Fairfield athletics, the Falcons heading over to LaGrange Tuesday night take on Lakeland.
Lakeland had three players in double figures in the scorebook, led by 16 points from Keegan Merrifield, as the Lakers beat the Falcons 55-46. Notable on the night for Lakeland was a 23-26 performance from the free throw line, including 13-14 in the fourth quarter. Parker Smith led the Falcons with 13 points and Grady Garber chipped in nine points. Fairfield outscored Lakeland 12-5 in the first quarter, but Lakeland outdid Fairfield, 34-21, in the second half.
The Fairfield JV had Caleb Shearer score 11, Brady Park score nine and Isaac Mast score eight in a 48-33 win.
The last time Fairfield hosted NorthWood, it wasn’t pretty as the Panthers scored the game’s first 28 points. Saturday night wasn’t nearly as bad, but NorthWood rushed out to a 24-8 lead and ran its regular season win streak over Fairfield to six with a 66-40 win at the Falcon’s Nest. Stats from the contest were not immediately available.
Sixth grade buckets concluded its season at New Paris Thursday night in a showdown with Westview. The ‘A’ team fell to the hot-shooting Warriors, 37-26, led by Briggs Garner’s 16 points. The ‘B team couldn’t catch Westview in a 35-23 loss. Keagan Beachy paced the Falcons with five points and both Bentley Metzler and Leo Guzman finished with four points. The sixth grade team ended its season with a combined 14-8 record.
Wrestling hosted West Noble Thursday night in a NECC battle.
West Noble got the better of the scoreboard, 56-20, but Fairfield had a historical footnote in the matchup. Senior Matthew Senn scored a pin at 1:16 over Brad LeCount for his 100th career victory.
Other winners for Fairfield included Breckan Maran with a pin and both Aldahir Ortiz and Grant Gill teetered on tech falls, but both took away major decisions, Gill 15-1 and Ortiz 13-1.
The girls started the night with a set of matches, Fairfield winning one of the four with Jacinda Brown scoring a 15-0 tech fall over Emily Bontrager.
Brown would continue her hot streak, going 3-1 to finish second at 170 at Saturday’s Lakeland Invite, her only loss in the final to Penn’s Myla Kuntu. Brown had three pins en route to the final, including a semi-final stick of Wawasee’s No. 12-ranked Alex Garcia.
Kayla Hochstetler was 4-1 overall and finished third at 125, and Addison Schrock earned a win at 190. Melodee Lantz was 0-2 in the 110 cards.
At the Nicholson Invite hosted by Elkhart, the Falcon boys were fourth overall with 261 points, all chasing champion Penn. Highlight of the tournament was Senn, who went 5-0 with four pins and a tech fall to take first place in the 150-pound round robin bracket. Ortiz and Dirk Rumfelt were both 3-2 with three pins each, Rumfelt fourth and Ortiz fifth in their weight classes.
Madison Jones went wild on Friday night, going 13-19 from inside the arc to build up a career-high 27 points in Fairfield’s 53-36 girls basketball win over visiting Lakeland. Eva Herbert had a great fantasy stats night, piling up 12 points, nine assists, six rebounds and two steals. Paige Park added seven points and three boards and Haddee Herbert chipped in seven boards, three assists and a steal in a solid supporting role.
The JV took care of business in the matinee, beating Lakeland 33-24. Gisel Lopez scored eight of her team-high 11 points in the first half, and the combo of Maddie Treat and Jenna Fought put together 15 points. Leah Rink added her first bucket of the season in the win.