Air Force rides Fow's hot hand to victory

Tom Fow didn’t want to make a big deal of it.

The senior scored Air Force’s first 10 points of the second half, which got the Falcons going after a choppy first half against Cal State Northridge.

Air Force kept Cal State Northridge at arm’s length for the rest of the second half in a 72-63 win Thursday night at Clune Arena.

The Falcons are 4-1. Fow scored a season-best 22 points, but please, save the applause.

“I give a lot of credits to my teammates,” Fow said. “They got me open. I just had to hit the shots. All the credit to them.”

Fow did a little more than he wanted to admit. The Falcons were tied 30-30 after the first half. Fow’s 3-pointer against Northridge’s zone started the second half. He then got a fast-break layup, hit another 3-pointer and got another layup to give the Falcons a 40-33 lead. Air Force never trailed again.

“Tom can shoot the ball,” said center Taylor Broekhuis, who was one of four Falcons to score in double digits. “As long as we can get him open shots, we’ll be in the game.”

The Falcons could have pulled away in the first half, but were dominated on the boards. Cal State Northridge grabbed 13 offensive rebounds before halftime. Air Force grabbed 13 defensive rebounds. To Air Force’s credit, it gave up just seven second-chance points on all those rebounds.

“We’ve got to do a better job on the boards,” Air Force coach Jeff Reynolds said.

In the second half, Air Force pushed the pace a bit on offense and pressed a little more on defense.

The Falcons’ matchup zone, which Reynolds used because the Matadors aren’t an adept 3-point shooting team, gave Northridge a lot of problems.

Northridge shot 33.8 percent for the game, which helped the Falcons overcome a 49-30 rebounding disadvantage. The Falcons haven’t allowed an opponent to shoot better than 37.3 percent this season.

“Our goal going into each game is to hold an opponent under 40 percent,” Reynolds said. “If we do that, it’s going to allow us to be in games.”