FAIRVIEW – The Fairview Aggies looked for their first win in the early part of the season after falling to Arab in the season opener. They got it Thursday night, against the Hanceville Bulldogs. After not seeing their good shots fall early on, they relied on their defense to help them get easy points and pulled away from Hanceville from the second quarter on, en route to a 61-46 win.
In the first quarter, Fairview had trouble making shots early on, so instead of pressing harder and harder, they relied on their defense to help get the offense going, forcing the Bulldogs into tough shots, getting easy points down low from Truman Boyd as he scored four, Luke Yarbrough five and Bryson Fletcher a pair of free throws. The Aggies held Hanceville to just two 3-pointers, both by Brendan Flanigan, to take an 11-6 lead after the first quarter.
In the second, it was a battle to see who would get the momentum first heading into the half. For most of the game, it was back-and-forth between both teams, but after a Flanigan field goal cut the lead to 20-16, the Aggies ended up being the team with the momentum as they ended the half on an 8-0 run to take a 28-16 lead.
In the third, Fairview continued the momentum and had the lead at 20 at one point, as Hanceville got sloppy with the ball, and the Aggies had contributions from their bench as well. The lead grew to 46-27 after three. Hanceville tried to make the deficit a little bit more reasonable going into the fourth, and things ended a little more positively for the Bulldogs as they outscored the Aggies 19-15 in the quarter.
Fairview was led in scoring by Yarbrough with 16 points. Fletcher finished with 11. Sam Elrod had nine. Boyd finished with eight. Jacob Hill had seven. Klayton Knop finished with six, and Grant Howard and Tyler Ball each finished with two. Fairview improves to 1-1 on the season and travel to J.B. Pennington Friday night.
"We took some really good shots early on; they just did not go down." Fairview coach Edgar Groves said. "We still had to get back on defense. Our 3-point shots were not going down, so we attacked down low. We have to get to the free throw line. Their guys made more free throws than we did, so that is not good. Our zone defense was not as effective as our man-to-man was tonight. We gave them problems when we were in the man-to-man defense. At times, we were not putting our hands up to defend. Evans is a really good bench player for Hanceville."
Flanigan led Hanceville with 16 points, Evans finished with 15. Cameron Brockman had eight. Fred Ellis and Raiden Morgan each finished with three and C.J. White had one. Hanceville is 0-1 and will play Dora next Tuesday in their first home game of the season.
"We are a young team." Hanceville coach Daniel Wakefield said. "We have to get our drills down, and once we get the fundamentals and everything down, we can become a good team."
Fairview 75, Hanceville 26 (girls)
Fairview put the game away in the first quarter as they swarmed the Lady Bulldogs into turnover after turnover, getting not only easy baskets, but 3-pointers in the win.
The Lady Aggies led 25-4 after one, 42-10 at the half and 62-12 after the third quarter.
Taylor Yeager led Fairview with 26 points. Abby Schnittker finished with 20. Maci Yeager had 11. Jada Golden finished with nine. Abbi Taylor had five and Daylia Dean finished with four. The Lady Aggies improve to 2-0 on the season as they will travel to face the J.B. Pennington Lady Tigers Friday night.
"Our defense helped us get a lot of easy baskets. The girls played like a team tonight." Fairview coach Mary Lauren Hartline said. "Hanceville has a good team and a great coach. This was their first game, so we had an advantage."
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