As Coach Casey continues to mix and match his deep roster, sophomore center
Peyton Smith and fifth-year senior guard Jamie Bergens shined this afternoon as the inside/outside duo guided the Fairfield Stags’ 78-to-74 comeback win over FDU.
Entering the game, a major focal point for the Stags was to contain FDU star sophomore guard Terrernce Brown, who entered the game as the eighth leading scorer of the nation. However, thanks to a group effort highlighted by the defensive playmaking of Prophet Johnson – who forced two steals guarding FDU’s offensive dynamo – Brown finished with just twelve points, a season low, on a season worst 5-for-14 from the field.
On the flip side, Fairfield fifth-year senior Jamie Bergens starred this afternoon finishing with a career high 20 points, climaxed with a late-game explosion as the veteran guard scored seven points across the game’s final seventy seconds. Just seconds prior to his closing scoring burst, a Bergens forced steal against FDU junior guard Brayden Reynolds helped prevent the Knights from tying up the game with ninety seconds remaining.
With his second career double-double, Peyton Smith continued to show his impressive growth as the Stags’ starting center. Early on in his career, his skill and two-way awareness were the foundation of Smith’s immediate impact, but entering this season fifteen pounds trimmer, Smith is noticeably stronger and more physically ready as he battled underneath all afternoon against FDU’s veteran big tag team of Cameron Tweedy and Bismark Nsiah.
Entering the game with just four minutes played this season, sophomore guard Matt Curtis provided two separate scoring spurts at key moments throughout his nine minutes played. Coming off the bench early in the first half, Curtis hit two of the Stags’ first six field goals while Curtis shined in the closing four minutes of the game with five points and a forced steal. As the team’s only returning guard from last season, Curtis packs a lot of potential after finishing last season averaging 12 points and 2.3 three-pointers per game in the CBI, so it will be seen if he can continue to make an impact with his scoring and aggressive two-way play.
After averaging 17 points-per-game last season at Loyola (MD), junior guard Deon Perry has struggled with his scoring efficiency prior to this afternoon, but Perry ended strongly scoring all of his nine points across the game’s final fifteen minutes. Like Bergens, Johnson and Curtis, Perry is at his best when he is able to utilize an attacking mentality inside the arc and he was noticeably growing in confidence as the game continued.
This afternoon marked the team’s first time all season with a clean bill of health, allowing all thirteen scholarship players to earn minutes. That being said, a strength of the Stags is their depth, so now it is up for Coach Casey and his staff to determine which players can step up and make consistent impacts on the floor as the team starts conference play on Wednesday when they host Rider.
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