Wardsville – Ryan Fick had a pretty good idea of hitting his career 400 win at some point this season. But with significant departures from last year’s roster and a grueling schedule, he wasn’t sure how long it would take him to get there.
A six-game winning streak since late December by the Blair Oaks Falcons allowed Fick to reach a milestone on his home court Friday night.
“I’m happy to reach that milestone,” said Fick after the Blair Oaks beat the Versailles Tigers 80-64 in a Tri-County Conference game. “It says a lot about our program and the kids who play.
“I have been blessed with great players and a great coaching staff over the years.”
The Blair Oaks have bounced back after dropping four of their first seven games of the season.
“You can see the players starting to play with a little bit more confidence than they used to,” Fick said. I’m starting to see men find their touch.
It wasn’t the best opening eight minutes for the Falcons.
“We struggled to rebound in the first quarter,” Fick said. “We knew they shot a lot out of the 3. That leads to a lot of race rebounds. Early on, they beat us on those rebounds.”
The next eight minutes proved to be the difference in the game as Blair Oakes outscored Versailles 18-5 in the second quarter.
The Falcons started offensively stagnant games against the Tigers’ 2-3 zone defense, much like their previous home game against Booneville. This time around, it took Blair Oakes minutes instead of quarters to get out of the funk.
“We’ve been talking about creating an offense in transition, and you can see we’re starting to buy into that,” Fick said. “I extended my lead today because I scored in transition.”
Jaxon Marshall landed two spin moves in lane to score a pair of layups. Meanwhile, Dylan Hair drove to the basket for a layup and scored another point blanking his shot in transition.
Alec Weeberg added a dunk from a steal to push Blair Oaks’ lead to 31-21 with 1:49 left in the first half.
Zach Henry finished the first half by knocking down a three-pointer from the left corner from a cross-court pass from Hare to give the Falcons a 38-23 lead at halftime.
“We had guys shooting down shots,” Fick said. His team shot 58.8% of his shots from the floor in the win. “When the shots fall, everything looks good.”
Blair Oaks led by 24 points after a reverse layup by Chase Schneiders to make the score 54-30 with 3:24 left in the third quarter.
The Falcons adjusted their defense to contain Versailles rider Williams, who entered the game averaging 27.7 points. By the end of the third quarter Blair his Oaks leading 58-39, Williams was held to his 11 points.
However, Williams added 14 points in the fourth quarter and finished with a game-high 25 points.
“He’s a scorer,” Fick said. “He thinks he’s done a really good job, but if you look up, he’s scored over 20 points. That was the case tonight.”
The Falcons held the Tigers to 5/30 shooting from 3-point range.
“Dylan, Alec and Nick Crosser did a really good job protecting him,” Fick said of Williams.
Versailles closed their lead to 11 points in the final minute.
Henry scored 23 points on 8-of-10 shooting and added nine rebounds to lead the Falcons, but Fick was happy with Weberg’s performance. The senior guard added 18 points on 8-of-13 shooting.
“Alec Weeberg had a great game tonight. He hit the ball really well,” Fick said.
Hare finished with 12 points and eight rebounds, and the Schneiders went 6-of-6 at the free-throw line in the fourth quarter, reaching double figures with 10 points.
“It’s nice to look at the scorebook and see the scoring balance,” Fick said. “Obviously Zach Henry is there because that’s his job. It makes it harder to focus our defensive energy on our players.”
Reese Murdoch added 13 points and 8 rebounds for Versailles (8-4, 0-1 Tri-Counties).
“The Murdoch kid was tough off the dribble,” Fick said. “He’s more athletic than anyone I’ve seen. He’ll be a force for years to come.”
The Blair Oaks (9-4, Tri-County 3-3) will be on a three-week hiatus from conference play starting next week at the St. James tournament. The No. 3 seed Falcons will face No. 6 seed St. James on Monday at 7:30 p.m.
“You’re going to see a lot of different styles of teams in the coming weeks,” Fick said.
The Blair Oaks won Friday’s JV game 64-15 to improve to 10-3. For the Falcons, Evan McCullough scored 13 points and Brenden Ruckers scored 12.
The Blair Oaks kicked off the tripleheader with a 64-21 win for the freshman team with an 11-2 record. Tyler his backs scored his 10 points, a team-high for the Falcons.