The Falcons led by as many as 13 and never trailed during regulation, but came up short in the overtime period in a 76-68 loss to Brookfield on Friday.

Cale Polson gave Fayette a 67-63 lead with a layup in the final minute, but the Bulldogs came back to tie it up. The Falcons had a chance to win the game on the final possession, but Brookfield made a defensive adjustment that caught Fayette off guard and the Falcons were unable to take a shot.

“I really take the blame for the end of the game,” Fayette coach Jon Bishop said.

“We should have had a better set drawn up there… I expected him to match up, but they showed us zone. We need to have something better drawn up in that time. 

“You hate losing at any point, but you take a team like that into overtime, you can build off that, there’s something to work off of.”

Kyle Schleeter

The Falcons showed no rust coming off the winter break, jumping out to a 16-3 lead on a pair of 3-pointers from Kyle Schleeter and Tyler Bartholomew. Brookfield answered with a 16-5 run. Fayette struggled to score against the Bulldogs’ length in the second quarter when the 3-pointers stopped falling, but the Falcon defense held Brookfield to just six points in the quarter to protect a 27-21 lead at halftime.

“We showed a ton of heart,” Bishop said. “We just have to keep trying to be focused on improving every game. We saw things tonight against a long team and an aggressive, athletic team that we hadn’t seen.”

The Falcons found their offense again in the third quarter, despite not making a 3-point attempt. When Brookfield cut the lead to one, Polson scored followed by a steal and score from Schleeter to push the lead to 36-31.

The Bulldogs came back to tie the game at 38-38, but Fayette answered with an 8-0 run that included 3-point plays from Schleeter and Grant Himmelmann.

In the fourth quarter, Schleeter ended the Falcons’ 3-point drought with a big shot, followed by Polson’s first make from deep, which gave Fayette a 52-45 lead.

Polson finished with 18 points and five steals. Josh Henderson made all three of this hard-earned field goal attempts against the taller Bulldog post defenders, finishing with seven points and 11 rebounds.

Schleeter scored 29 points and had eight steals before fouling out as Fayette led 61-57 with 2:10 left.

The Bulldogs scored on the first possession of overtime and then made just their second 3-pointer of the game to put Fayette behind by five points right away. The Falcons scored just one point in the overtime period.

Zach Henderson led the Falcons with six assists and added four offensive rebounds and three steals.

“I was really, really proud of everybody tonight,” Bishop said. “I think everybody that went in the game contributed in some way.

“We’ve got a big week ahead of us, and I’m ready to look forward to that and hopefully we can keep getting better.”