Shoremen’s Ball conquers Comets’ defense

One couldn’t blame Avon Lake senior Jordan Ball when Amherst went to a man-to-man defense.

The lanky, but very quick 5-foot-10 guard slashed his way to a team-high 16 points, which included six points in the final four minutes, to lead the Shoremen to a 57-50 Southwestern Conference win over the host Comets Feb. 8.

“I thought it took a half for our kids to adjust to the physicality,” Avon Lake coach Dave Borish, who filled in for Eric Smith, who missed the game due to an illness.

“When they did, kids like Nick Marsh started scoring inside … then Jordan does what he normal does. He kind of took it over with dribble penetration. He’s a tough guy to guard man-toman.”

Avon Lake (11-8, 9-6) held a 48-43 lead early in the fourth quarter before Amherst (3-16, 2-13)) came back to tie it at 48 on Alec Dimacchia’s layup.

Ball broke the deadlock with a driving basket. With Amherst coming out of its zone defense, Ball

extended the lead with a jumper. With the Shoremen spreading out Amherst’s defense, Ball put an exclamation point on his night with a scintillating driving layup to make it 56-50 with just under two minutes left in regulation.

After a tough stretch a few weeks ago, Ball appears to have found his stride.

“It’s being a leader and doing whatever it takes to win,” Ball said. “I’m going to do it on a consistent basis so I had to find my rhythm.

“They (Amherst) went to man-to-man, so they spread the floor a little bit and gave me opportunities to take it to the hole.”

While Amherst has hung its hat on the 2-3 zone, Coach Pat Bray knows his team is going to have to play man-to-man when the time calls for it.

“We can’t really keep the ball in front of us,” Bray said. “So we can’t go out there and really manup … we did a better job towards the end of the game. We found our identity, which is playing in that zone.

“But we’re trying to figure when we get behind we have to come out of that zone, get stops and get scores. That is what we’re struggling with right now.”

The game was physical from the outset, but Ball scored eight of his points in the first quarter to keep the Shoremen close after Amherst jumped out to a 14-6 lead, trimming the deficit down to 16-14.

Nate Sidloski scored seven of his 14 points in the second half. But it was Sidolski who set the tone for Avon Lake’s inside play for the second half with a tough offensive rebound and putback late in the first half

Marsh continued the trend in the second half as he scored 10 of his 12 points in the second half. Marsh’s free throw tied the game at 40 at the end of the third quarter.

Ryan Hritsko continued his fine play with 12 points and Tory Toth came off the bench to add 13. But, Amherst scored only two points in the final four minutes, which proved to be the difference.

“We’re going every possible to win, but we just didn’t get a few shots to drop for us.” Bray said.