HAMMOND — For the second straight season, the Fairview girls basketball team will be absent from the Class B state finals after suffering a 54-36 loss to the hands of district rival No. 3 Anacoco on Monday night at the University Center in the state semifinals.
The Panthers (40-3) played a majority of the game without star point guard Maddisen Martin who suffered a knee injury in the first quarter.
“The biggest thing was when we lost our best defender and one of the best defenders in the state in all classifications and our second scorer averaging 22 points per game and our third leading rebounder,” said Fairview head coach Kyle Jinks. “She’s our point guard. She kind of makes us go. ... You take that away and you have players playing positions they’ve never played before.
“You cannot replace a Maddisen Martin. There just is no replacing her.”
Without Martin distributing the ball, Fairview struggled shooting the ball, finishing with a 21.9 percent shooting percentage and hitting just 3 of 32 shots from beyond the arc.
The Indians (26-7) really pulled away from the Panthers in the second quarter when they outscored Fairview 16-7 to take a 27-16 lead into the halftime break.
Anacoco then opened the third quarter on a 10-2 run to extend their lead to 19 points and put the game out of reach of the Panthers.
“We tried to do too much,” Jinks said. “We’re not very good one-on-one, and we tried to do too much. We tried to get back in our offense and tried to get some points defensively.”
Fairview chipped away at the Anacoco lead, getting it down to as few as 12 points, but that’s as close as it would get in what would be their final game of the season.
“They fought, and they didn’t quit,” Jinks said. “That’s all I ask them to do: fight.”
Anacoco reached the the Class B finals for the first time in 15 years with the win.
After losing to Fairview twice during the regular season, Indians head coach Michelle Goins said this win was that much sweeter.
“Our goal both times we played Fairview in the regular season was to learn and grow and know what we needed to do for the third time, and that’s just what we did,” Goins said.
Callie Maddox led the Panthers with 16 points.
Despite her high school career ending short of another state championship, she said she will remember her senior season most fondly.
“It’s been awesome being a Lady Panther and playing for Coach Jinks,” Maddox said. “Even though this year did end the way we wanted it to, this has been the best year. I’m not pleased with this game, but I’m happy with the way we fought this season.”
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