The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
SWC race has thrilling end
Avon Lake owns title outright after holding off North Ridgeville
Although this game wasn’t winner-take-all for the SWC title, it sure felt like it. Win or lose, Avon Lake was walking out of Feb. 17 as a conference champion. North Ridgeville had to win to join them for a share, but the Shoremen didn’t want to share anything.
Avon Lake got off to a fast start in the first half and survived for a 60-50 win down the stretch over the Rangers. The Shoremen end the regular season 19-3 with a 12-2 record in conference play. It was also senior night, and even though they’re a seniorheavy squad, all nine got in the game at some point. The best team in the conference all season long is conference champions at the end of it.
“You can pick captains, but leaders emerge,” Avon Lake coach Eric Smith said. “We’ve had 13 leaders emerge, that’s the entire squad. They are together, they love each other, they play for each other. All they care about is that 6050 at the end of the night, and we’re going home with an undisputed conference championship.”
Saying Avon Lake was the best team in the conference all year is true, but the race for the SWC title was anything but easy. North Ridgeville was right on the Shoremen’s tail for awhile, and this game on Feb. 17 would have been for the outright title between the two teams had the Rangers not slipped up against Berea-Midpark on Feb. 10. NR finishes tied for second with Elyria in the conference standings at 10-4.
To North Ridgeville’s credit, it rallied in the second half after being faced with a 42-22 deficit at halftime. However, the Rangers’ first half hole proved to be too difficult to crawl out of.
It’s rare to see a game change only 1:48 into it, but that’s exactly what happened when Jake Boynar picked up his second foul. The senior forward had to sit out for the rest of the first quarter and never found his rhythm. He finished with nine points, but looked primed to have to a big game after making his first shot.
See a recap and photo gallery from the game on our website.
Avon Lake took advantage and jumped to a 2013 lead at the end of the first quarter. Boynar came back in to start the second quarter, but the Rangers couldn’t capitalize. On the other side, everyone was stepping up for Avon Lake.
Matthew Stuewe and Isaac Richardson were scoring the ball, Collin Stewart was running the offense, Peyton Lerch scored 10 first-quarter points and Keegan Rudduck was all over making plays. The usual suspects were making winning plays for Avon Lake.
The Shoremen were playing zone defense, and the first half was one of the best defensive halves that you will see. North Ridgeville didn’t have any comfort, and the nerves were apparent. NR was held to only nine secondquarter points, and the team turned the ball over 13 times in the first half.
It was 15-13 late in the first, and a 12-0 boosted the lead up to 14. Avon Lake scored 42 points in the first half, but it wasn’t a halfcourt offensive clinic. The Shoremen were taking advantage in transition off of Rangers’ turnovers.
‘We let our offense dictate our defense,” North Ridgeville coach Ben Chase said. “We weren’t scoring early, we were turning the ball over against the zone, we were way too in a hurry putting the dribble down,
and all of a sudden they’re getting run outs. They’re a really good transition team, that’s what they do best. We had to give ourselves a better chance to win that in the first half.”
It’s a regular occurrence to see a good team come back from a large first-half deficit, but this one felt different. Avon Lake’s gym was loud in the first half, the buzz was palpable when Richardson scored the final eight points of the half for the Shoremen, including consecutive dunks at one point. In the second half, everything changed. The building stayed loud, but it was North Ridgeville’s fans getting into it.
There might not have been a more impressive performance in a loss than from Griffin Turay. The junior guard completely took over the game for North Ridgeville, scoring a gamehigh 27 points and grabbing a game-high 12 rebounds. He was almost single-handedly bringing the Rangers back into it.
Turay scored 10 of the team’s 18 points in the third, and the deficit was only 11 at the end of the third quarter.
“I feel like in the first half, we definitely let our nerves get the best of us,” Turay said. “It was the biggest game of the year so far, we were playing for our conference, and I feel like the moment got too big for us. I think after halftime, we settled down a little bit. We had nothing left to lose and we just came back and fought because we’re a competitive team.”
The game also got really competitive in the fourth quarter, it was the complete opposite of the first half. Avon Lake suddenly was the team not scoring and that lacked composure. It was uncharacteristic of them for most of this season, and the Rangers capitalized.
Collin Jones knocked down a 3-pointer to make it 51-43, and it started a 10-1 run for NR. Boynar and Stacy both made layups and the deficit was five. Turay made a free throw and then scored on a strong layup to make it 52-50 with 1:25 to go.
“This was a product of a veteran, senior team that never panicked,” Smith said. “It got down to two at a point in time, but we just continued to do what we do. They didn’t flinch, you looked at them in timeouts and they were ready to go. I couldn’t be prouder of them.”
Avon Lake rounded back into form for the final minute, finishing the game and the SWC title race on an 8-0 run. Stewart made an and-one to go up 55-50, while Rudduck and Stuewe made free throws to close it out.
“You have to play an absolutely perfect game to win,” Chase said. “We played a near-perfect game (in the second half), you guys saw it, they had five actual points on field goals, everything else was from the free throws. That’s elite defense, but you can’t play for 16 minutes and want to win a conference title. You have to play for 32.”