By PAUL GOTHAM
BRIGHTON, N.Y. — Fairport boys’ basketball closed the month of January playing on back-to-back nights and three of the last four.
And for three minutes or so Saturday evening, that hectic schedule looked like it might get the best of the Red Raiders.
For the other 29 minutes, though, Scott Fitch’s group resembled its No. 12 state ranking.
Alex Grejda led three in double figures with 17 points, and Fairport (14-0) cruised to its 13th double-digit win of the season with a 66-39 victory over host McQuaid.
“It definitely tests your grit and how much energy you have in the tank,” Fitch said of the week’s schedule. “This group seems to respond every time, right now. I look at it as a challenge, and we go and attack it.
“You find out your true colors when you get challenged. We’d like to learn as much about ourselves as we can before we get into postseason. We’re still learning for sure.”
Fairport defeated Spencerport on Wednesday before topping Victor in a Monroe County Division I matchup, Friday night. Saturday’s tilt was a non-league matchup.
“It’s hard to find days, believe it or not, when you get into scheduling and playing,” the 25th-year coach said. “McQuaid has always been a big rivalry for us, so to do it on a Saturday is okay.”
Hadi Dergham’s conversion off a baseline inbounds play was part of an 11-2 run to close the first quarter and gave Fairport a lead it did not surrender for the remainder of the contest.
This after the Red Raiders failed to score on their first six possessions – a stretch in which they committed three turnovers.
“This group has a big trust in ourselves,” Fitch said. “It’s nice when you have that. You can get into some bad situations, but not lose focus. They seem to trust in themselves, and they trust in us. Tonight, we forced a couple turnovers on the defensive end which got us some easy ones. We were having trouble against their zone early. Once we got that going and saw the ball go through the hoop, I thought we kinda changed our mentality a little bit.”
Sam Roselli’s 3-pointer in transition gave Fairport its first double-digit lead of the night at 22-11. Next trip down the floor, Noah Meabon converted a pair of free throws. Then Grejda grabbed an offensive rebound, pivoted and stepped past a defender for a bucket in the lane to close the half at 26-15.
It would be easy for the onlooker to think this is a team loaded with basketball-specific student-athletes. Instead for the majority of Fairport’s starting five, basketball is a secondary sport.
Grejda earned All-American honors in soccer this past fall. The center back was part of the Fairport boys’ soccer program that won the 2024 NYSPHSAA Class AAA title and took a 37-match unbeaten streak into the 2025 state championship game. Meabon, a member of the Boys’ U19 National Team, is committed to play volleyball at the University of Southern California next fall. Roselli will play baseball at the University of Albany. Jon Roessel, who comes off the bench, will play baseball at USC-Upstate.
Grejda, Roessel and Roselli were all part of the 2024 Fairport baseball team that won the state Class AAA championship.
With that mix of talent, Fairport entered action Saturday night with a scoring margin better than 26 points per game (per High School Sports Stats).
“They love to compete, and that translates from the other sports,” Fitch said. “They all have a passion for basketball even though it might not be their best sport or their sport for college. You can see how unselfish they are. They play for each other.
“One thing we did is we made a committed effort to a lot of skill work early in the season because we knew they didn’t have all those reps that everybody else had coming into the season. We really made a big effort to get our skill level up, so they can feel confident on the basketball court.”
Meabon converted 9-of-11 free throws as part of a 13-point effort on the night. Dergham scored 10, and Roselli added nine.
Isaiah Mead-Jackson and Nick Fallat finished with eight points apiece to lead McQuaid. Andrew Gerenski added seven points.
Fairport will host Churchville-Chili for a 7:30 p.m. tipoff on Wednesday. McQuaid travels to Monroe for a 6:15 p.m. game on Tuesday.
FAIRPORT (66)
Ty Wheaton 0 0-0 0, Gannon Culver 0 0-0 0, Trey Bauza 1 2-2 5, Alex Grejda 8 1-2 17, Sam Roselli 3 0-0 9, Jon Roessel 0 0-0 0, Ryan Fay 0 0-0 0, Antonio Nurse 0 1-2 1, Noah Meabon 2 9-11 13, Jeremiah Crocker 1 0-0 2, Matt Swann 1 2-2 5, Hadi Dergham 3 4-6 10, Luke Amarel 0 0-0 0, Drew Gruba 1 0-0 2 TOTALS 21 19-26 — 66
McQUAID JESUIT (39)
Isaiah Mead-Jackson 3 0-0 8, CJ Nicholson 1 3-4 5, Gavin Vander Wal 2 0-0 5, Andrew Gerenski 4 0-2 8, Jeremiah Myers 2 1-2 5, Gianni Hahn 1 0-0 2, Chrisaun Jordan 0 1-2 1, Nick Fallat 2 3-8 8, TOTALS 15 8-18 — 39
FAIRPORT 11 15 23 17 — 66
McQUAID 6 9 11 13 — 39
3-point goals: FAIRPORT 5 (Bauza 1, Roselli 3, Swann 1); McQUAID 4 (Jackson 2, Vander Wal 1, Fallat 1).
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