WARDSVILLE -- Ryan Fick had a pretty good idea he would get to 400 career wins at some point this season. But with a large turnover from last year’s roster and a tough strength of schedule, he wasn’t sure how long it would take to get there.
A six-game win streak since late December by the Blair Oaks Falcons allowed Fick to reach the milestone Friday night on his home court.
“It’s nice to get to that milestone,” Fick said after Blair Oaks’ 80-64 win against the Versailles Tigers in Tri-County Conference play. “It says a lot about our program and the kids that play. I’m happy to be in a great place.
“I’ve been blessed with great players and great coaching staffs through the years.”
Blair Oaks has bounced back after dropping four of its first seven games this season.
“I can see guys starting to play with a little bit different confidence than what we had early,” Fick said. “We’ve gotten some practices under our belt, we’ve won some close games that were tight down the stretch. You’re starting to see guys find their touch.”
Gallery: Blair Oaks Boys Basketball vs. Versailles
It wasn’t the best opening eight minutes for the Falcons, who clinged to a 20-18 advantage against the Tigers in a back-and-forth first quarter.
“We struggled to rebound in the first quarter,” Fick said. “We knew coming in they would shoot a high volume from 3, which leads to a lot of race rebounds. Early on, they beat us to those rebounds.”
The next eight minutes proved to be the difference in the game, as Blair Oaks outscored Versailles 18-5 in the second quarter.
The Falcons started the game stagnant offensively against the Tigers’ 2-3 zone defense, much like their previous home game against Boonville. This time, it only took Blair Oaks a few minutes to snap out of their funk, rather than a few quarters.
“We’ve talked about generating offense in transition, and you can see us starting to buy into that,” Fick said. “When we extended our lead today, it was because we scored in transition.”
Jaxon Marshall made two spin moves in the lane for a pair of layups, while Dylan Hair drove to the basket for a layup and scored another point-blank shot in transition.
Alec Wieberg added a dunk off a steal to push Blair Oaks’ lead to 31-21 with 1:49 remaining in the first half.
Zach Henry finished the first half by knocking down a 3-pointer from the left corner off a cross-court pass from Hair to give the Falcons a 38-23 lead at intermission.
“We had guys knocking shots down,” said Fick, whose team shot 58.8 percent from the floor in the win. “Everything looks better when shots fall.”
Blair Oaks led by as many as 24 points following a reverse layup by Chase Schnieders, making the score 54-30 with 3:24 to play in the third quarter.
The Falcons aligned their defense to contain Versailles’ Ryder Williams, who entered the game averaging 27.7 points. By the end of the third quarter, with Blair Oaks leading 58-39, Williams had been held to 11 points.
However, Williams added 14 points in the fourth quarter to finish with a game-high 25 points.
“He’s a guy that is going to score,” Fick said. “You think you’ve done a really good job, and then you look up and he’s got 20-plus points. That’s the way tonight was.”
The Falcons held the Tigers to 5-of-30 shooting from 3-point range.
“Dylan, Alec and Nick Closser did a really good job of guarding him,” Fick said of Williams, who was held to 2-of-10 from 3. “Our help defense was really good.”
Versailles got as close as 11 points of the lead in the final minute.
Henry led the Falcons with 23 points on 8-of-10 shooting and added nine rebounds, but Fick was pleased with Wieberg’s performance. The senior guard added 18 points on 8-of-13 shooting.
“Alec Wieberg had a huge game tonight, he shot the ball really well,” Fick said.
Hair finished with 12 points and eight rebounds, while Schnieders was 6-of-6 at the free-throw line in the fourth quarter to also reach double figures with 10 points.
“It’s nice to look at our scorebook and see the balance in scoring,” Fick said. “Obviously, Zach Henry is up there, because that’s what he does. But to see three other guys in double figures, it makes it more difficult for teams to focus the energy defensively on one particular player.”
Reese Murdock added 13 points and eight rebounds for Versailles (8-4, 0-1 Tri-County).
“The Murdock kid was tough off the dribble,” Fick said. “He’s as athletic as anybody we’ve seen. He’s going to be a force the next couple of years.”
Blair Oaks (9-4, 3-0 Tri-County) will take a break from conference play for the next three weeks, starting with next week’s St. James Tournament. The third-seeded Falcons open against sixth-seeded St. James in the first round at 7:30 p.m. Monday.
“We’ll see a lot of different styles of teams over the next couple weeks,” Fick said.
Blair Oaks won Friday’s JV game 64-15 to improve to 10-3. Evan McCullough had 13 points for the Falcons and Brenden Rackers added 12 points.
Blair Oaks started the tripleheader with a 64-21 win by the freshman team, which has an 11-2 record. Tyler Bax scored a team-high 10 points for the Falcons.