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Girls Basketball: Oswego East advances to final
With 6-foot-5 shot-blocker extraordinaire Robert DeMyers still sidelined with a broken leg, it was no secret to Oswego East Thursday that Aurora Central Catholic would be vulnerable in the middle of its 2-3 zone defense.
The Wolves went early and often to 6-4 Kalmon Stokes and he responded with one of his better games, scoring a game-high 23 points and pulling down eight rebounds to lead his club to a 71-61 victory.
“We talked about getting it into the post,” said Stokes, who put an exclamation point on the performance by storming in from the baseline and corralling a underhanded lob from Kenny Battle Jr. with his dominant left hand and slamming it home for his second dunk of the game in four attempts.
“The first one (from Battle) I missed, and I told him I wasn’t missing another one,” Stokes said.
The win sends Oswego East, 3-0 in pool play, to Friday night’s 7:30 title game of the East Aurora Holiday Tournament against defending champ Peoria Central.
“Kalmon has finished some games for us this week. I love the confidence he’s playing with now,” said Wolves coach Jason Buckley, whose team is 7-3 overall.
“The dunk attempts were just a byproduct of that. He’s just confident that he can go up and elevate on people and get it down. And that, you can’t put a price tag on. ... He’s playing with a little swagger about him and that’s a great thing.”
Stokes had nine points in the opening quarter, including seven in East’s 12-4 run that closed the period after the teams were tied 6-6. He had 15 at the break, when his club led 36-26.
East led by as many as 19 in the third quarter and 55-40 entering the fourth.
Matt Meyers, who came off the bench to spark the Chargers (3-9) with 22 points, had three of his five three-pointers in the final quarter. His second of the period with 5:13 remaining cut the lead to eight (56-48), but ACC could get no closer.
“Matt played a great game today,” ACC coach Nate Drye said. “He got it going and we’ve been waiting and needing for him to do that because he can put points up in a hurry.”
It was especially necessary because Oswego East’s Nick Marema was putting the clamps on ACC’s Joey McEachern, limiting him to just one three-pointer for the game.
The Wolves got what Buckley called “a quiet 20” from junior guard C.J. Vaughan (four assists) and 13 points from Battle. Marema matched his nine points with a game-high nine rebounds.
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