Some love for the little guy

A rare metro occurrence takes me off the beaten path to a new gym tonight.  Its FAIR at Hope Academy in a matchup of small city schools.  FAIR's only win of the season from what we see online is against Hope a month ago.  A nice tiny little gym tucked in on the north side of the building makes it a bear to find but I had sources who made it far easier.  A table for simple concessions and no programs but I came prepared with the MSHSL printout which still had some omissions.  Varsity only so I'm limited to 12 oz of Sprite.

Game Time
FAIR gets after it with pressure man to man and quickly opens up a 10-0 lead.  Frosh Nate Elifson hammers one home to stop that run.  FAIR backs off and goes 2-3 zone.  Then Keith Washington on the break with the nasty dunk for a 20-7 FAIR lead at the 11:24 mark.  Washington 4 in a row then after a Hope bucket, 8th grader Sy Chatman goes for 8 points in a row including the always difficult 0123 on The Czar's stat sheet (that's miss 1st FT, make 2nd, score a bucket and then knock down a 3).  Fellow 8th grader Markel Aline with good production at the point (had me thinking Jordan Taylor).  Washington takes another turnover for a dunk late in the half.  42-20 FAIR at half.

The lead expands to 47-22 early in the half and this game should have running time written all over it.  But FAIR gets sloppy and Darrius Ross carries the Hope Academy offense in the half.  He makes a pair of 3s around a horrible intentional foul call against Hope Academy that doesn't really hurt them.  52-43 FAIR with 8:43 left.  Then Ross to the reverse and another bomb and the lead is down to 6.  57-51 FAIR with 6:20 left and all of a sudden we have a game.  A steal for a possible 3 point play gives Hope a chance to cut the lead to 5 with 1:43 but the free throw is no good.  Hope won't get any closer.  A banked in 3 by Hope cuts the final margin to 70-62 FAIR.

No full stat line tonight as I didn't entirely keep up.  But Darrius Ross with a big second half leads Hope Academy with around 20 points.  Keith Washington with 18 on my sheet for FAIR and that should be pretty close.