TJ’s Fairman clips Falcons’ wings with 27-point effort

By Jose Negron

jnegron@yourmvi.com

Thomas Jefferson took over late in the first quarter and never looked back in a 59-28 victory over visiting Connellsville Thursday. 

After a bit of a shaky opening four minutes, the Jaguars (5-2, 3-0) settled down to take a three-point lead into the second quarter. From then on, they outscored the Falcons (2-1, 2-1) by a 46-18 margin to capture their third straight Section 3-5A triumph. 

“I thought our defense did a much better job of contesting shots and then getting rebounds,” TJ head coach Lisa Fairman said. “Once we got the defensive boards, I thought our transition really kicked in and we just went on a run. Once we had that lead, we never really looked back.” 

Graci Fairman poured in a game-high 27 points for the Jaguars as she caused fits for the Falcons’ defense all night.  

“(Graci Fairman) is such a fantastic player,” Connellsville head coach Shawna Little said. “She can drive, she can dish, she can do it all, and we knew that, but we didn’t handle it well when they did miss a shot. I told them before the game the difference was going to be us capitalizing when they did miss and being able to convert on our end, and we didn’t do that.”

Connellsville went down by six within the first minute of the game before scoring six straight points on buckets inside by Hillary Claycomb, Madison Kineer and Autumn Ansell. 

The Falcons, who were led by Claycomb’s 14 points, held on to an 8-6 lead and kept TJ scoreless for just over three minutes, but a bucket by Delaney Concannon kickstarted a short 7-2 run that gave the Jaguars a 13-10 edge heading into the second quarter. 

Kineer converted on a layup just over a minute in to the second before the Jaguars took over, marching out on a 19-4 run in the final 5:24 of the frame. Fairman scored 10 points during the spurt, while the Falcons were limited to a bucket by Nevaeh Hamborsky at the 4:12 mark and a jumper by Ansell in the final seconds of the first half. 

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