Peter Cady/The Mirror
The women’s basketball team entered the weekend with high hopes. The Stags were 11-2 in the MAAC and facing first-place Marist and third-place Canisius. Losses to both teams, though, dropped Fairfield back to third place at 11-4.
Fairfield beat previously No. 20 Marist and Canisius on the road earlier this season, but the Stags were unable to repeat the feat at home.
Marist, with a 23-3 overall record and a 13-2 conference record, has likely secured the number one seed, but Canisius, after a loss to Saint Peter’s, now has the same MAAC record as Fairfield. The difference between a two-seed and three-seed may not seem significant, but it could have large implications for a post-season berth.
Last year, Fairfield and Iona tied for the second-best conference record, but the Iona earned the lower seed based on tiebreakers. After Marist won the MAAC tournament, Iona earned the automatic Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT) bid, and Fairfield was left hoping for an at-large berth that never came.
This season, the same scenario could happen again. But, more importantly for now, Fairfield needs to focus on winning the rest of its games.
‘That’s something that we started to address in the locker room after the game,’ said head coach Joe Frager. ‘We need to come back and focus. We won eight in a row, and [now] we’ve lost two in a row. Now we just have to do everything in our power not to make it three in a row.’
One reason for the weekend losses was that Fairfield did not handle the ball well. In theloss to Marist, the Stags had six assists and 16 turnovers and in the loss to Canisius, the Stags had eight assists and 19 turnovers. Fairfield needs to be more efficient with their possessions to return to its winning ways.
‘That’s not us, if you look at our ratios throughout the year,’ said Frager. ‘Typically we’re a team that’s around 14, 15, 16, 17 assists per game when were playing well.’
But both Marist and Canisius are good teams that have improved over the course of the season, much like Fairfield.
‘Marist is a team, they’ve been in this position a lot the last five years,’ said Frager. ‘They’ve got experienced kids at this kind of game where for some of our players, they haven’t been in this sort of situation. I’ve been very proud and pleased with the way these guys have played for the past eight games.’
The loss to Canisius was particularly tough because the game was winnable and the Stags senior class was honored before the game. But now, after two days off from practice following the game, Fairfield will have to rebound on the road against Siena on Friday.
‘We have to play better defensively,’ said senior Baendu Lowenthal. ‘We just have to come together and talk some things out.’
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