Falcons hold off Wheeling, 93-91

FAIRMONT, W.Va. November, 23, 2008 --- Twenty minutes after the final horn sounded, Thad McFadden’s heart was still beating fast.

“If we would’ve lost that game, whew man I don’t know what I would’ve done,” said McFadden, Fairmont State’s senior guard who poured in a game-high 32 points in the Falcons’ narrow 93-91 victory over Wheeling Jesuit Saturday afternoon at the Joe Retton Arena in the West Virginia Conference opener for both schools.

“I almost had a heart attack. I’m still nervous. It was like last year’s game (an 83-81 FSU win in overtime in the first round of the league tournament). I’m feeling the same thing right now. The good thing, though, is it’s over and we won.”

Fairmont did indeed win to improve to 3-0 overall and 1-0 in the WVC, but the victory didn’t come easy. The Falcons raced to a 53-35 halftime lead by playing near-flawless basketball. FSU shot 51.3 percent from the field in the opening half (20 of 39), canned nine 3-pointers and held WJU to just a 34.3 shooting performance.

The second half, however, was a different story.

“The two halves today were totally different,” said Fairmont State head coach Tim Murphy. “In the first half, we shot the ball very well and the reason we did that is because we moved the ball, we shared the ball and we took it inside and brought it back out. Defensively, I thought we were pretty good too.

“Now in the second half, it was totally opposite. I think we got a little bit selfish and I’m a little disappointed in that. We made some bad decisions, we turned the ball over too much, we missed some key layups and we didn’t do a great job of handling their pressure. I thought there were several times in the second half when we really could’ve put them away, but instead we let them keep creeping back into the game and in the end it nearly cost us.”

FSU led by as many as 23 late in the first half and held a 20-point, 67-47, lead with 13:30 to play. But the scrappy Cardinals refused to quit. Led by talented freshman guard Cedric Harris and senior guard Maqsood Harrington, WJU clawed its way back and narrowly missed an opportunity to tie the game and send it to overtime as the final horn sounded.

Wheeling outscored Fairmont 44-26 in the game’s final 13:30. The Cardinals’ Kyle Higgins sank back-to-back 3-pointers in a 16-second span to pull Wheeling within one at 91-90 with 3.8 seconds to play. Then on the inbounds play Fairmont’s Steve Custis was fouled. He calmly sank both free throws at the other end to give the Falcons a 93-90 advantage, but then fouled Harrington at the other end to put him on the line for two shots with just six-tenths of a second showing on the clock.

Harrington made the first and intentionally missed the second and the Cardinals’ Joe Suchy had a perfect opportunity for a put-back basket on the rebound, but couldn’t get it to fall as time expired.

“Fairmont is a good team,” said WJU coach Dan Sancomb. “They’re well-coached, hard to guard and they do a good job of keeping the floor spread on you. We’re so young this year. We have nine freshmen and played quite a few of them and I honestly believe they don’t have an understanding of our league and how a good team plays. (Saturday), they got a dose of a what a good team can do to you when you’re not ready to play which was the case for us in the first half.

“Now in the second half, we were able to get them to play a little quicker than they wanted to and we defended better. They shot 50 percent in the first half and just 33 percent in the second. I honestly felt like we played a little harder than they did the last 10 minutes of the game, but in our league if you don’t play for 40 minutes you’re going to be on the wrong end of a lot of scores.”

FSU placed three individuals in double figures in the scoring column led by McFadden’s 32. Falcon senior center Ian Grady posted his second straight double-double, finishing with 22 points and a game-high 12 rebounds, while Custis, a redshirt freshman guard, also chipped in a career-high 22 points.

“I told our guys after the game this was a lesson learned for us and we’re very fortunate to have a ‘W’ stuck on that lesson,” said Murphy. “This very easily could’ve been a loss for us.”

The Cardinals, who fell to 0-2 overall and 0-1 in the league with their second straight heartbreaking defeat, were paced by Harris, who finished with 27 points, Harrington, who ended up with 19, all of which came in the second half, and Adam McFerran, who contributed 17.

Fairmont State returns to action at Wednesday at 5 p.m. when it visits Clarion (Pa.) University for its first road contest of the season.