For an entire half, the strategy was working for the Fairfield High School boys basketball team in its consolation final against St. Xavier in the LaRosa’s Royal 8 Hardball Classic on Monday .

Force a turnover and run. Get a defensive stop, and run some more.

Keep the bigger Bombers chasing instead of setting up a forest of a 2-3 zone.

“Because of their length, that is a lot of what we wanted to do,” Fairfield coach Tim Austing said after his squad fell 54-38 at FHS. “A lot of what we do is off turnovers and defensive stops and getting out and going; they didn’t let us do that in the second half.”

Trapped in half court game, the Indians’ offense slowed to just 16 points over the final two quarters.

“Our problem both nights was that both teams were physically bigger and stronger than us,” Austing said of losses to Withrow and St. X. “Eventually, they just wore us out.”

The Indians spotted the Bombers a 10-2 lead in the first quarter, but came back behind eight points from Herman Brunis to trail just 12-10 heading into the second eight minutes.

St. X opened with another run, but again Fairfield came storming back.

Brunis scored four straight to stop a 11-0 run and T.C. Wells canned a big 3 with 1:08 left to get the Indians back within four. Tim Fleming went coast-to-coast with a steal and converted the three-point play to send the Indians into the half down just 23-22.

“We did some very good things in the second quarter,” Austing said. “Our margin for error is not that big against a team that good; it is hard for us to counter.”

St. X took the third quarter 18-6 for a 41-29 lead heading into the final minutes and the Indians could never get closer than 13 the rest of the way.

Brunis led the way with 16 points while Wells added nine.

Fairfield hosts Colerain on Tuesday night.