Boys Basketball: Wheaton Academy takes down Aurora Central

Updated: February 10, 2012 11:17PM

Cameron Harvey, Wheaton Academy’s trap defense and its stellar three-point shooting keyed a 63-38 Suburban Christian Blue win Friday over host Aurora Central.

Of those three victory ingredients for the Warriors (15-8, 8-1), the tough defense had the biggest impact. The Chargers (7-15, 2-6) committed 19 turnovers on the night, compared with just 10 for the Warriors. In the first half, the disparity was even greater, with Aurora Central giving up the ball nine times to just twice for Wheaton Academy.

Both players and coaches noted that in their postgame comments.

“We turned it over way more than what you can do if you’re gonna win,” Chargers coach Nathan Drye said. “We were doing fine and then we had a stretch where we just turned it over quite a few times and they stretched the game out, and then that was ballgame.

Said Chargers leading scorer Robert DeMyers: “The key to our game is we just had way too many turnovers at the end of that first half and then going into the second half. It was really just spread out for everyone. We’ve just got to stop turning the ball over and we’ll be fine.”

Aside from the turnovers, other factors affected the outcome of the game.

Harvey scored 16 of his game-high 21 points in the first half and the Warriors made nine three-pointers in the game to Aurora Central’s none.

Collin Roy (12 points) singlehandedly helped put the game away in the third quarter, when Wheaton Academy outscored Aurora Central 18-6. He hit three treys in a span of just less than three minutes to stretch what had been a 37-28 lead into a 46-28 advantage. Harvey, who filled the stat columns and seemed to be in the middle of every key play, banked in a short jumper to make it 48-28 and six-foot-six-inch Warriors center Gordon Behr (six points) made two baskets, the second a rim-rattling dunk, to put his team ahead 52-28.

Roy’s shots came after DeMyers, a senior, scored on the second of his two put-back baskets early in the period to cut the Warriors’ lead to 37-28.

During that same quarter, Wheaton Academy used its trap defense to create transition offense and expand a 34-24 halftime lead to a 52-30 advantage after three. That, more than the three-pointers, hurt the Chargers, said Drye. He said most of the three-pointers came after the Warriors had stretched the lead.

DeMyers said his Chargers team failed to get up defensively on Wheaton Academy’s shooters, leading to too many open looks.

“We’re a good three-point shooting team and in a situation like tonight where we had a lot of open looks, our guys were hungry,” Wheaton Academy coach Paul Ferguson said.

Earlier in the game, Drew Sandberg fed Harvey for an alley-oop dunk that gave the Warriors an 18-14 lead and ignited the intensity of the visiting team. The Warriors had only led 16-14 after one.

Lars Olson scored eight for the Warriors.

DeMyers led the Chargers with 12 points, also grabbing four rebounds. Fellow senior Matt Czerak scored all eight of his points in the first half and classmate Paul Kaminski grabbed a game-high six rebounds as the Chargers outrebounded the Warriors 23-17.

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