Sports

Iona beats Fairfield for sixth straight win

Momo Jones wasn’t going to stay quiet for long.

After taking only four first-half shots, Iona’s senior guard scored 22 of his 27 points in the second-half of the Gaels’ 84-73 win over Fairfield Friday night at the Hynes Athletic Center, which included a solo stretch of 13 straight points that helped secure the game in the final minutes.

After winning their sixth straight game, the Gaels (12-6, 6-1) moved into a first-place tie in the MAAC with Niagara and improved to 7-0 at home this season, while the Stags (10-9, 2-5) dropped their third consecutive game.

Four of Iona’s next five games come on the road, with visits to the other top teams in the MAAC, including Rider, Loyola (Md.), Niagara and Canisius.

“We’re going to see what we’re really made of,” Jones said. “These next few games are going to show what our season is about.”

So far, the season is about what it was during last season’s conference championship campaign — a relentless running offense and defensive indifference.

After taking a 41-30 halftime lead behind Sean Armand’s 15 first-half points, the Gaels opened the second-half, without any semblance of desire, allowing the first seven points. And after Fairfield closed the gap to 47-46 with 14:30 remaining, it appeared as if the double-digit leads that collapsed so easily last season was happening once more.

“We showed that we can score, we just got to play defense for a whole game,” said Armand, who finished with 23 points. “It’s effort and a lack of focus. The same way we have fun on offense, we got to have fun on defense.”

Iona took a 61-50 lead with 10:56 left, but were only up 72-69 with 3:41 remaining, as Fairfield’s Derek Needham kept the Stags close with 26 points on 6-of-11 3-point shooting.

But Jones was too much, unleashing an assortment of offensive ingenuity by attacking the rim, shooting from 30-feet out and making the off-balance appear ordinary.

“In the first half, I felt I really didn’t have to do much,” Jones said. “Sean carried the load. In the second half, they kind of layed off of me and that’s when I was aggressive. [But] we have a lot to work on. I don’t even think we’re close to half as good as we can be if we continue to work.”

Fairfield jumped out to an early 17-12 lead with Iona struggling shooting, including a baffling 1-of-7 start from the free-throw line. The second-best free-throw shooting team in the country would hit their next 10 free throws and took a 27-24 lead after a 3-pointer from DaShawn Gomez with six minutes left in the first half, part of a 16-3 run which extended the lead to 11 multiple times.

Playing without senior Taaj Ridley, who was out because of a violation of team academic policies, David Laury forced the issue inside and finished with nine points on 2-of-12 shooting, while grabbing a game-high 14 rebounds and five blocks.

Iona coach Tim Cluess said he did not know when Ridley would return.