Conard junior Riley Fox gets his 1,000th point and a comeback win over Middletown

Riley Fox needed 43 points to reach 1,000 for his career and he wanted to get the milestone basket against Northwest Catholic on Tuesday.

But the 6-foot-5 Conard junior fell seven points short in a loss to Northwest. So Fox – who has averaged over 20 points per game through his career – would most likely reach 1,000 against Middletown Thursday.

Fox got his seven points early in the second quarter, but the Red Wolves were trailing by nine Thursday late in the third quarter and any post-game celebration would have certainly been muted with a loss.

“We talked about it last game against Northwest. I wanted to get my 1,000th,” Fox said. “But Coach [Jared Leghorn], after the game, said it would have sucked to lose and score your 1,000th point so this game was really big for us.

“Coming back was the only option we had.”

Conard came back. Fox scored 33 points in Conard’s 54-50 win over Middletown, including 14 in the fourth quarter.

“He got 1,000 points in 47 games,” Leghorn said. “He would have got it last year if it wasn’t for the COVID season. It was a great team win on a night where we got to celebrate a special kid.”

“He’s the best to coach, he’s the nicest human being, the best teammate … I can’t say enough about him. We’re very lucky. Conard’s lucky, the CCC’s lucky – he’s a one of a kind type of kid.”

Fox hit a 3-pointer to open the game and had a jumper in the lane to start the second quarter for his 1,000th. But Middletown went up 27-21 at halftime and with 17 seconds left in the third quarter, the Blue Dragons led 37-28 after a Justice Freeman 3-point play.

But the momentum shifted when Fox was fouled at the buzzer and made one of two free throws and two more when Middletown was assessed a technical foul. Conard only trailed by six and when Jackson Morhardt hit a 3, Middletown led by three, 37-34.

Conard went ahead on a putback by Fox, 41-40. He had a pair of assists on fast break layups by Alex Moemeka and another basket to give the Red Wolves a 48-42 lead with a minute left.

“I knew we were going to come back and hopefully win the game,” Fox said. “That was all we needed was to cut down that lead a little more.

“In the second half, we came together as a team. In the locker room at halftime, we were addressing how we weren’t really playing with each other. We weren’t fitting well together. We got a lot of stops coming out of halftime. They couldn’t score but we couldn’t score either but eventually we got the momentum.”

Conard is missing three starters due to injuries (although two are slated to return next week), so the start of the season hasn’t gone quite the way the Red Wolves wanted and Fox has had to shoulder more of the burden. He admitted he was trying a little too hard in the first half.

“I think it’s his team, he’s the guy and we were struggling so he was kind of trying to take it on his shoulders a little bit,” Leghorn said. “But at some point in the fourth quarter, we started trusting each other really well.”

Fox has offers from Yale, Fairfield and Central Connecticut. He said he’s talked to some mid-major schools, some Ivy League schools (he has a 4.2 GPA) but no decisions have been made yet about his future.

“I don’t try to get too ahead of myself,” he said. “I try to focus on the season.”

Lori Riley can be reached at lriley@courant.com.

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