The Fayette Lady Falcons head into the Christmas break with a perfect 3-0 record in Lewis & Clark Conference play following a 50-40 win over Paris on Wednesday, Dec. 20.

Fayette now holds an 8-2 overall record. The only blemishes are an early-round letdown to New Franklin in the Glasgow Tournament and a loss to Class 5 Helias in the Norm Stewart Classic.

Wednesday’s game was somewhat anticlimactic for a team that recently steamrolled Slater and Scotland County.

“We weren’t doing terrible. We just weren’t doing great,” said Fayette coach Daryl Betts. “We were getting lots of good looks, we just weren’t hitting anything in transition. In the first half, I felt like we were one shot away from breaking the seal.”

Fayette and Paris battled to a 15-15 tie after one quarter before the Lady Falcons broke open a lead in a lopsided second frame.

Both teams struck from the 3-point arc in the first quarter. For Fayette, junior Oakleigh Hill knocked down two of them, and freshman point guard Addy Gibbs made one.

Paris made two 3-point shots in the first quarter.

“I thought until they start hitting threes, we really had to go with the 1-3-1 zone because I was really worried about the downhill that they were getting off the man-to-man,” Betts explained about Fayette’s defensive strategy. “They started hitting some threes, so we had to adjust again.”

Free-throw shooting also played a role through the first half, as both teams racked up the foul counts. Fayette finished 4-for-6 in the first quarter and made six of eight attempts in the second. Paris was perfect in the first period, sinking all five shots, and made three out of six tries in the second quarter.

Those three free throws in the second made up the majority of Paris’s five second-quarter points. Meanwhile, Fayette found its lineup combination in the second quarter. 

Addison Powell, Maddox Wells, Kay Sullivan, Oakleigh, and Addison Gibbs added up to form the winning combination for the Falcons.

“That was the lineup that had to play a lot,” Betts said. “We figured that lineup out, and it worked really well.

“We went small,” Betts continued. “That lineup is great. They struggled to play at that pace with us. We got the momentum back, and we didn’t put that group back in until maybe like the last two minutes of the game.”

Fayette’s diamond press held the Lady Coyotes to just five points in the second quarter. Meanwhile, Fayette posted 12 points, half of which came from the charity stripe. The other half came from forward Kay Sullivan in the paint. She also sank both free-throw tries to score eight of her 15 points in the period. Fayette went into halftime with a 27-20 lead.

The Lady Falcons outscored Paris 18-8 in the third quarter but slowed down in the fourth, allowing the Lady Coyotes to inch back.

Gibbs scored all four of Fayette’s points in the fourth quarter when the Lady Coyotes were forced to foul to stop the clock. Paris posted four baskets from the field in the fourth, including a 3-pointer, but made just three of seven free-throw attempts.

Despite a late comeback, the Lady Coyotes were too far behind to make a real difference.

Fayette finished with three double-digit scorers. Hill posted a game-high 18 points with a pair of threes and made all four free-throw attempts. Sullivan scored 15 points and finished 7-for-8 from the line. Gibbs added 11 points with a first-quarter 3-pointer and a 5-for-7 performance from the stripe.

Fayette’s 10-point win gives the Falcons an 8-2 record heading into the break. It’s the best start since the Jessra Johnson era in the mid-2000s.

A year ago, Fayette hoped to post the first winning season since 2012 but finished with an even .500 record at 13-13.

Now, Betts and company have a more complete team that hopes to make some noise in the postseason. 

“It’s great. And we know that we can have success in different ways,” Betts said. “This year, we have a zone. We have man-to-man. We have a full core. We have different layers of everything. That’s really where our dimensions are getting better because we can win in different ways.”

The Lady Falcons’ strong start has earned them a top seed in the New Franklin Basketball Tournament. This year is the 95 edition of the historic tournament. Fayette kicks off the tournament Dec. 30 with a 12:30 p.m. tipoff against eighth-seeded Bunceton/Prairie Home. 

“It’d be really big for us to come out and compete and win this tournament,” Betts said.

A win could set up a third matchup between Fayette and fourth-seeded New Franklin in the championship semifinals on Jan. 3. The two teams are 1-1 this season. Before that can happen, however, New Franklin must defeat fifth-seeded Community. The winner of that game will be decided at 2 p.m. on Dec. 30.