Fairfax Christian: Messiah Dixon (#1), Frank Siaca Bey (#11), Trey Fitch (#3) Photo: Bradley Steiner (IG)
By: Luke Essig
Offensive firepower has always been a big part of the Capitol Hoops Summer League. This year, however, scoring has been amplified. In an era of basketball where people worry that the top scorers are using fouls and free throws to score in “unethical” ways, Fairfax Christian has saved basketball and created a hope that this new generation of hoopers is legit.
Through three weeks of the Capitol Hoops Summer League, Fairfax Christian is 6-0, in first place, and has a point differential of +240. Not only are they a powerhouse, but they would historically be one of the league’s best teams ever. They have the highest point differential since DeMatha’s dominant 2023 run, which ended with a differential of +299. The next highest differential this season is DeMatha at +169, 71 points behind Fairfax. The question has to be asked, how?
The answer is consistency. Fairfax Christian’s players don’t average an insane amount of points. Frank Siaca Bey averages the highest on the team with 18.2, followed by Trey Fitch with 13.6, Messiah Dixon with 12.0, and Shane Wellman with 10.8, rounding out the double digit scorers. Unlike most teams throughout any level of basketball, the talent doesn’t drop off after those four. They have six more players averaging more than five points per game. What stands out for Fairfax is the shooting percentage. Generally, a shooting percentage of around 42% is considered “great”. By that metric, Fairfax has ten(!) “great” shooters. Frank Siaca Bey shoots an outstanding 77% from the field, with Alex Sudbury and Shane Wellman right behind him with 74.1% and 72.4% splits respectively. These aren’t small sample sizes either. All of the top 10 guys have played at least ⅚ of Fairfax’s games. This talented roster has been blowing teams out of the water. They have won their games by 51, 48, 65, 25, 14, and 37. Teams are considered lucky if they lose to this team by less than 45 points.
Fairfax Christian’s next game is against Bethel Academy, led by their star guard and likely all-star Andrew Maria, who averages 26.2 PPG on 60/67/31 splits. It will be interesting to see how they can close him down, and if they do, I could easily see them ending this season with a point differential of at least +350.