Fairfield’s inside game too much for Osky girls

By JIM GRIES

OSKALOOSA — The Fairfield tandem of Heather Mason and Maryn Fulton were too much for Oskaloosa to handle as Fairfield cruised to a 52-34 win Monday night.

Mason hauled in 13 rebounds and scored a game-high 19 points while Fulton had a double-double as she grabbed 12 boards, scored 10 points and rejected seven shots for the 1-1 Trojans.

The Indians (0-3) managed to put up their most points this season and Coach Burdette Brown did see some bright spots on a cold night.

“Tonight, we played 2 1/2 quarters instead of a quarter and a half,” he said. “We were even on the boards at halftime and were even in the scoring column, but unfortunately, we were about 2-to-1 on fouls. We wanted to pound the ball inside and she (Fulton) was blocking us quite a bit. We were hoping to get some fouls called down there. We kept telling Megan (Gott) and Sarah (Hynick) to keep going hard and we would get some calls. They were start calling them, but it was too little, too late.”

The Indians spotted the Trojans the first four points of the game, but came back with a 5-0 run on offensive rebounds baskets by Cortney Major and Allison Rohloff and a free throw by Gott.

Fairfield took back the lead on a Mason offensive rebound bucket, but Hynick scored with 1:05 left in the first quarter to give the Indians a 7-6 lead at the break.

Hynick, who led Oskaloosa in scoring with 10 points, put in an offensive rebound with 4:25 left in the first half for a 13-12 Oskaloosa lead. But Fulton had two blocks on consecutive possessions as the Indians were held scoreless for almost 3 minutes.

Fairfield couldn’t take full advantage of the Indians’ shooting woes as it only had a Mason basket in that stretch for a 14-13 lead. Hynick snapped the scoring drought for Oskaloosa with 1:43 remaining, but a late basket by Gretchen Granneman gave the Trojans a 16-15 at intermission.

Jayce Carter’s bucket 15 seconds into the third quarter proved to be the last time Oskaloosa held the lead for the last time in the game as the Trojans scored eight unanswered points, six coming on offensive putbacks, for a 25-17 advantage with 4:42 to go in the period.

A basket by Major at the 3:20 mark cut the deficit to 27-22, but Oskaloosa would not score for nearly the rest of the third quarter when Carter made a shot with 52 seconds remaining.

Fairfield steadily increased the cushion in the fourth quarter as the closest Oskaloosa got was 34-26 early in the final quarter on a bucket by Rohloff.

Despite the third straight loss to begin the season, Brown saw some good things from his team.

“I was very pleased with the girls’ effort as we came out harder tonight than we have all season,” he said. “We played lights out and had some pure hustle. At time our offense looked good and at other times, we looked like we were into some kind of twilight zone, just throwing the ball everywhere. We’re going to turn this around and I think we made a giant leap tonight against a pretty good Fairfield team.”

Oskaloosa starts Little Hawkeye Conference play tonight when it travels to Norwalk.



Fairfield 52, Oskaloosa 34

Fair 6 10 18 18 — 52

Osky 7 8 9 10 — 34

FAIRFIELD (52) — Heather Mason 8 3-6 19, Maryn Fulton 5 0-3 10, Annie Buch 1 5-5 7, Meredith Flattery 2 2-2 6, Ariel Rinaberger 2 2-2 6, Gretchen Granneman 2 0-0 4. Totals 20 12-23 52.

Rebounds — 35 (Mason 13, Fulton 12). Assists — 5 (Flattery 3). Steals — 13 (Buch 4, Flattery 4, Rinaberger 4). Blocks — 7 (Fulton 7). Total fouls — 11. Turnovers — 15.

OSKALOOSA (34) — Sarah Hynick 5 0-0 10, Allison Rohloff 4 0-2 8, Jayce Carter 3 1-3 7, Megan Gott 1 3-5 5, Cortney Major 2 0-0 4, Mindy Hornick 0 0-0 0, Emily Street 0 0-0 0, LeAnan White 0 0-0 0, Heather Sereg 0 0-0 0. Totals 15-41 4-8 34.

Rebounds — 36 (Gott 8, Rohloff 7, Hynick 5). Fouled out — Street. Total fouls — 20. Turnovers — 23

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