'Saders misfire in loss to Stags; Shots forced in second half.

• Position: SPORTS

Byline: Bill Doyle

FAIRFIELD, Conn. - The emotional high that the Holy Cross men's basketball team gained by blowing out Boston College Friday didn't last long - only a little more than half of yesterday's 73-52 loss to Fairfield here at Alumni Hall.

R.J. Evans hit a pair of free throws to put HC ahead, 36-33, early in the second half, but Maurice Barrow scored seven points during a 14-2 run that gave Fairfield the lead for good and the Stags scored 40 of the game's final 56 points.

"I thought we gave them a good fight for about 25, 27 minutes of the game," HC coach Milan Brown said, "but you tip your hat to them. They sped us up a little more than we wanted to do and how we wanted to play. You could see the last 10 minutes of the game, we were emotionally spent coming off the win that we had two nights ago."

Devin Brown scored 32 points in an 86-64 win over BC at the DCU Center and had 10 in the first half yesterday, but went scoreless in the second half.

"We just paid more attention to him," Fairfield coach Sydney Johnson said.

Evans and Phil Beans led HC with 14 points each. After shooting 53.4 percent against BC, the Crusaders shot only 35.7 percent (20 of 56) yesterday and totaled just nine assists. Fairfield's bench outscored HC's, 19-6. The HC reserves made only 1 of 13 shots.

"It's hard to stay revved up when the ball is not going in the basket," Milan Brown said.

Fairfield (2-2) beat HC (1-3) for the fourth consecutive time. Maurice Barrow paced Fairfield with 15 points and 11 rebounds. Rakim Sanders and 7-foot center Ryan Olander each scored 13 and Derek Needman had 10. Fairfield shot 54.5 percent (30 of 55) and outrebounded HC, 39-29.

Fairfield relied upon 3-pointers in its first three games, but used its height advantage yesterday to outscore HC, 50-32, in the paint.

HC fell to 5-28 over the last three seasons against teams from outside the Patriot League. HC hosts nonleague foe Hartford Wednesday night. The win over BC on Friday was HC's first over an ACC school since a 63-61 conquest of North Carolina State Dec. 29, 1959.

Fairfield was picked to finish second in the MAAC this year after having won the regular-season title last year. But HC hung tough for a while. Beans opened the second half with a 3-pointer that put HC on top, 32-31, but the Crusaders didn't sink...