By Phil Keren

Correspondent

Strong shooting and a tenacious defense were key factors in Field’s 76-40 win over previously undefeated Garfield on Saturday afternoon.

“Everything absolutely clicked today,” said second-year Field head coach Alex Blake. “Our guys were sitting here, zoned in, locked in and they just came out ready to go.”

While the blowout win might have been a surprise to some Portage County high school sports observers, Field senior forward Ben Stayer said he and his teammates felt they had been very competitive in their losses and were right on the cusp of breaking through with a victory.

“We’ve had tough losses against Norton, Cloverleaf and Streetsboro, where it felt like we could hang with these guys,” Stayer said. “We were winning in the first, second quarters in those (previously mentioned) games and we just lost at the end. We knew we were right there, but I think today we just put it all together. I don’t know if there is one thing I could pin it on. We knew it was coming.”

As they did two days earlier in a 63-51 loss to Streetsboro, the Falcons (3-6) played at a deliberate pace in an effort to find open shots, and this time they made shots in bunches.

About 90 seconds into the game, Field senior guard Grady Eader hit a 3-point shot to give the Falcons a 6-3 lead. From there, the Falcons steadily built the lead to 15 at halftime and 24 by the end of the third period.

At the end of the first quarter, Field players and coaches likely felt a sense of déjà vu. They led 16-13, a duplicate of the tally at the end of the first period against Streetsboro on Thursday night. In that game, the Rockets outscored the Falcons 20-7 in the second quarter to take a double-digit lead that they never relinquished.

On Saturday afternoon, it was Field’s turn to log a dominant second period to take control of a game. The Falcons bested the G-Men (5-1) by a 23-11 margin in the quarter to take a 39-24 lead at halftime. Field opened the quarter on a 7-0 run and closed it out on a 13-6 spurt. During the 7-0 run, Falcons junior guard Trevor Dixon scored on a layup thanks to a feed from Eader, senior Brayden Ronowski swished a 3-pointer after stealing the ball in the backcourt, and Eader nailed a trey.

In the 13-6 run just before intermission, Eader made another 3 and a layup on a drive to the hoop, while senior guard Landon Wilmoth knocked in a pair of 3s.

“We knew we wanted to slow it down and be patient and get great looks, and we got a lot of great looks,” Blake said.

Blake said he made some tweaks to his team’s approach following the Streetsboro game.

“We worked the ball through the middle, tried to kick and rotate, and we got into their shooters … we watched film against them against Southeast,” Blake said. “We knew they were going to shoot a lot of shots. They would give up layups to go get 3-pointers. We didn’t have to chuck up 3s. These guys were just ready to go again today, having fun.”

Stayer said playing against Streetsboro helped prepare the Falcons for the showdown against Garfield.

“(Streetsboro’s) a really good pressure team,” Stayer said. (They) play hard, tough defense. It really helped us tonight on offense, especially.”

The Falcons faced an intense full-court press from Garfield early in the second half, but were able to break through and make easy baskets at the other end of the floor. After Stayer made back-to-back driving layups and Eader laid it in on a drive, the Falcons led, 48-26, with barely 2 minutes elapsed in the third quarter. Garfield was unable to reduce Field’s margin below 16 the rest of the way.

Everything that Garfield tried — full-court press, a 2-3 zone, 1-3-1 zone, man-to-man — Field seemed to have an answer as it continued to build the lead.

Stayer said he thinks Blake does a good job preparing the team to face different defensive strategies and added the tough competition they face in the Metro Athletic Conference is beneficial.

“I think he gets us prepared in practice very well, and also with our conference we played against that stuff a lot, too, recently, and he does a good job drawing up stuff to get us out of it and just play through it,” Stayer said.

Stayer’s coach praised him for the strong leadership attributes he displays in each game.

“He slows the game down and he just never says anything, never gets mad,” Blake said. “He’s one of our senior captains, him and Grady. He just is always laid back. You know it’s going to be easy for him when he gets going.”

Eader, who finished with a game-high 23 points and a trio of 3-pointers, was asked about how he remained calm as he faced intense defensive pressure and double-teaming from the G-Men.

“I’m kind of just used to it at this point,” said Eader. “Staying calm is the best thing to do in that situation (and) finding my open teammate.”

Eader added the team was motivated to get a win before having a long break during the holidays.

“We knew that they were a good team coming into this,” said Eader. “We didn’t want to go 0-3 heading into our break. We don’t play a game for, like, two weeks. We wanted to get a win before going into the long break.”

It was a true team effort for the Falcons, with many players contributing in different phases of the game.

“Alec (Grimm) had a few backdoor layups today, (Joey) Conroy had layups, Sam (Confer) rebounding, Trevor (Dixon) comes back after two weeks off, looking to facilitate, getting layups,” Blake said. “Our guys trusted him today. It was big. That eighth man in our rotation was huge and Trevor played phenomenal.”

Joining Eader in the double-figure club was Stayer with 14 points and senior guard Brayden Ronowski with 13. A total of eight Falcons made it into the scoring column. Garfield was led by senior guard Aidan Hall, who scored 13, and junior guard Brandyn Bogucki, who tallied 7.