»PHOTOS: Fenwick tops Badin in overtime
Junior guard Landen Long and senior forward Noah Pedelty are two of them. The 6-foot-4 Pedelty scored 16 points and led Mason with six rebounds and four assists and the 5-11 Long scored 10 of his 14 points in the second half as the Comets held off Fairfield for a 63-57 Greater Miami Conference win.
Senior guard Tanner Knue also scored 16 points for Mason (10-2, 6-2 GMC), which was playing its third of four consecutive road games.
“It’ll be nice to get back home to the ‘Black Hole,’” said Pedelty, referring to the Mason student cheering section.
“We’ll get through this road stretch and see what happens,” Richards said.
Fairfield (5-9, 3-5) also placed four players in double figures, led by 5-foot senior guard Blake Spaulding’s 13 points. Junior forward Devin Turner came off the bench to add 12 along with a game-high nine rebounds and 5-11 senior guard Kyle Schimpf and junior guard Peyton Brown each finished with 11 in a physical game that was punctuated by a combined 44 fouls.
Mason finished with one fewer field goal than Fairfield and each team sank four 3-pointers, but the Comets outscored Fairfield, 15-7, on free throws and led by as many as 14 points with 5:18 left in the game before the Indians clawed back to cut the margin to 59-56 with 1:21 left in the game. Pedelty went 3-for-5 from the line and grabbed a key offensive rebound and Knue added a free throw down the stretch.
Sims still was thinking about that Pedelty rebound after the game.
“Our execution at key points is something we’re still fighting through,” he said. “Against good teams, you can’t do that. We know the kids have fight. We know that. It’s the same old thing. That offensive rebound – if you want to give yourself a chance, you’ve got to get that. There’s such a small margin for us.”
The Indians will play the first of back-to-back GMC road games on Tuesday at Sycamore, followed by a visit to Hamilton on Friday. Mason is scheduled to play at Hamilton on Tuesday.
Mason, which opened the season with seven consecutive wins before losing two and then winning two, went into the game tied with Lakota East for third in the GMC. Fairfield was sixth after opening the season with four consecutive losses. The Indians had lost three of their last four going into Friday’s game.
The two teams are scheduled to play again on Feb. 9 at Mason, which has a six-game winning streak in the series.
Lang scored the first seven points of Mason’s 11-2 run to end the third quarter, giving the Comets a 45-34 lead.
Turner came off the bench to score seven points for the Indians in the first half, six during a personal 6-2 run to give Fairfield a 15-8 lead going into the second quarter.
Mason bounced back behind balanced scoring to lead, 26-24, at halftime. Sophomore forward Jack Cooper forged the first tie at 20-20 on a 3-pointer with 3:36 left in the quarter, and junior guard Jack Franke gave the Comets their first lead, 22-20, with a layup 39 seconds later. Pedelty’s two free throws with 51.8 seconds left produced the halftime score and gave Mason the lead for good.
Knue scored eight points and Pedelty seven in the first half. Fairfield didn’t score for the last 2:06 of the half.
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