A third-quarter turnaround proved crucial for the eighth-seeded Fayette boys in a two-point victory, 48-46, over seventh-seeded Linn Friday night in the seventh-place game of the Harrisburg Tournament.

The game was exactly one week after Fayette defeated the Wildcats 66-56 at home on Courtwarming night for the Central State 8 opener.

Sophomore Blake Braden delivered a massive game for Fayette, scoring a team-high 16 points, including the go-ahead bucket from an inbounds pass with 20 seconds left in the game.

“None of those buckets were bigger than the one that he hit at the end of the game,” said Fayette coach Brandon Friebe about his only player to finish in double figures. “He was our third option coming off of that, to be honest with you. We were looking to get something inside to either Colten [Cross] or to Peyton [Oeth], and they did a great job of defending those first two options. And our third option was to get him the ball in space and let him go do what Blake does. And he did a great job. I honestly have no idea how he made that shot, but I’m glad that he did. He played really well for us tonight.”

Separated by two points, Linn called a timeout with 17.9 seconds on the clock. Friebe told his players they absolutely had to make one stop and win this last possession.

Linn kicked the ball around, but ultimately couldn’t sink the basket as time expired. Fayette keyed on Linn senior Gus Peters, who led all scorers with 19 points. Friebe sicced senior Jaron Cross on the Wildcats’ scoring leader. He gave Peters no space on that final possession, forcing junior Cody Heckman to take a desperation three from the left of the key before the time expired  The ball sailed right of the basket, bouncing out of bounds as the final buzzer signaled Fayette’s two-point win.

“Jaron played every minute of the second half,” Friebe said. “He told me at halftime, ‘coach, I can guard No. 2.’ And so he did a really, really good job of at least containing him and stopping the dribble. Jaron held him to seven in the second half. And that was big for us.”

Peters scored 12 points in the first half, many of which were off turnovers and the rest on driving layups as the Falcons played an unfocused first two quarters. Friebe and his team knew they had to stop Peters, who scored 25 a week ago in Fayette.

“I told Gus after the game, he’s one of the best players in our conference. He’s really shifty. He’s very quick. And he finished well at the rim. So we knew that he was the guy that we had to stop. Kudos to Jaron for being the defensive player that we know he’s capable of being. We turned him loose. He told me he could do it. I trusted him, and he went out and did it.”

The Falcons played great full-court defense at times in the first half, forcing turnovers to take an early lead. But Linn coach John Veihland prepared a solid game plan, causing Fayette to make some early adjustments against the Wildcats’ zone that saw Fayette’s big-man lineup playing a five-guard scheme.

“We knew they were going to come out in a zone against us,” Friebe explained. “In the first game, in the second quarter, they made a run on us, and they switched from a 3-2 zone matchup zone to a 2-3 zone. And they hurt us a little bit. So we were kind of anticipating that they would come back out in that 2-3 zone. They came out in a really, really aggressive man-to-man defense tonight. And so we had to call an audible offensively in a hurry. Usually when people play us man-to-man, we’re excited about that because we feel like we get a lot of good ball movement, and we just didn’t do that well in the first half.”

After trailing by two at the end of the second quarter, the Falcons went into halftime down by six, 25-19. But the Falcons played against their nature in the third quarter, outscoring Linn 18-10 to take the lead on a basket by Braden with 5:07 on the clock. The surge was significant not only for keeping the Falcons in the game, but also because the team historically has not played well in the third quarter.

“We did a much better job in the second half,” said Fayette coach Brandon Friebe. “We were a little bit more patient in the second half. We played too much one-on-one basketball in the first half, and we played much better team basketball in the second half. So we had to make some adjustments. And kudos to their coach. He did a great job of catching us off guard on some things. But I’m just really, really proud of our guys for making the adjustments that we needed to make that we talked about at halftime and came back out and changed some things up.”

Both teams battled to an 11-11 draw in the fourth quarter, with the final basket of the game coming from Braden to put Fayette in the lead.

The game ended a grueling week for both teams, who entered Friday’s matchup after back-to-back losses in a challenging tournament stacked with bigger teams. Fayette lost to first-seeded Blair Oaks 83-29 in the opening round of the tournament on Tuesday, Jan. 27, then fell to fifth-seeded Fulton 82-41 on Thursday in the consolation semifinals. Linn dropped Tuesday’s opener to second-seeded Hallsville 70-34, then fell to sixth-seeded Harrisburg 69-52 in the consolation semifinals.

Friday’s game was the fourth in two years between two teams that are developing quite a rivalry in the young CS8 conference. Fayette and Linn have now played seven times since 2018, with the Falcons winning six of those matchups, all by 10 points or less.

The Falcons returned home on Monday to host former Lewis & Clark Conference rival Salisbury, falling to the Panthers 70-42, but highlighted by a game-high 21 points by Braden.

The game kicked off a final stretch of nine games in 17 days to finish off the regular season. The Falcons traveled to Russellville on Tuesday after the Advertiser had gone to press, and finished up the week at Eugene, the reigning Class 2 state champion, on Friday. Fayette has just two home games remaining this season. The first is Senior Night against longtime rival Harrisburg on Feb. 13. The home closer is on Feb. 17 against CS8 opponent South Callaway.