By MARK MAYNARD — The Independent
WESTWOOD — Raceland was the visiting team at Tuesday night’s boys’ basketball game at George Cooke Memorial gymnasium.
Fairview just seemed like the guest.
Playing only their second home game of the season, the Eagles held off Raceland 43-40 to win for the 16th time in 19 games.
Neither team seemed real comfortable with points being hard to come by.
Raceland shot only 30 percent but had a chance to tie the game on an open 3-point look in the last 30 seconds. Poor foul shooting — a yearlong bugaboo — also hurt the Rams again.
“Neither team was making shots,” said Raceland coach Scott Floyd. “We had a lot of open looks. Foul shots hurt us, too. That’s been our M.O. A couple of games, if we’d made our free throws, our record would be a lot better.”
Fairview did finish well at the free throw line, making eight of nine in the last 30 seconds, to secure the win in front of the home fans.
“I don’t think we were ever in synch,” said Fairview coach Derek Cooksey. “But if you’d told me we’d be 16-3, with only two home games, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
The Eagles struggled to put together any spurts and that allowed the Rams to hang around to the end.
Fairview took the lead for good at the start of the second quarter when Ceth Gunter scored off a nice pass from Chase Fannin. It would be the first of three consecutive buckets for Gunter, who started for Brent Jackson (bronchitis).
The Eagles’ largest lead came at 36-28 but the Rams answered with five consecutive points, including a three-point play from Cody Barker that made it 36-33. Fairview missed two free throws and Tyler Farley missed a 3-point attempt that could have tied it for the Rams.
The Eagles paraded to the free throw line the rest of the way.
“We never could get over the hump,” Cooksey said. “We let them hang around.”
Fairview sophomore Mike Terry finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds and Caleb Collins scored 10. Gunter added nine points and six rebounds.
Raceland trailed 27-20 in the third quarter and missed six consecutive free throws. The Rams had only 10 points in the second and third quarters combined.
“But we had the chance to tie it and got an open look (on the 3-pointer),” Floyd said. “The kids played extremely hard and competed.”
The pace was where Floyd wanted it.
“We have to keep it a low-scoring game,” he said. “We have a hard time scoring the basketball.”
A strong first quarter from Darius Jackson helped the Rams to a 12-11 lead. Jackson had six points and four rebounds by himself.
“We looked a step slow early,” Cooksey said. “They wanted it more.”
Cooksey said the Eagles’ rebounding concerned him.
“The last two games we haven’t rebounded very well,” he said. “We need to get back to work.”
Barker scored 10 of his 12 points in the fourth quarter for the Rams (6-12).
Fairview plays at home Thursday against Ashland in a makeup game.
MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@
dailyindependent.com or
606) 326-2648.
