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Boys Basketball: Aurora Christian shakes off slow start, downs St Edward
Mary Beth Nolan~For Sun-Times Media
Updated: December 1, 2011 10:20PM
At times the Aurora Christian basketball team looked like it was still trying to get reacquainted with each other against St. Edward Thursday night, but the Eagles were more than happy to take the end result.
After welcoming five members of the Class 3A state championship football team back to the squad earlier this week, ACHS finally took the floor with a full complement of players and shook off a slow start to earn a 61-49 win in the opening round of the inaugural Burney Wilkie Classic.
It took a while for the Eagles (2-0) to shake off the rust as they missed their first 11 shots and fell behind 9-0 before Haydn McNelis scored with 1:46 to go in the first quarter. They were off and running from there, though, as his basket kickstarted a 16-0 run that sent ACHS into the break with a 25-23 lead.
“We have only had two practices with everybody, so we jammed everything down their throats and told them to go play,” said ACHS coach Steve Hanson. “We know we can shoot and we know we can score, it was frustrating but I had confidence in the kids that they were going to come out of it.”
Aurora Christian obviously has a lot of athletes, and running big bodies into the game and pushing the pace gave them several open threes and gave them the chance to pound the ball inside for layups. Shooting 15-for-28 in the middle quarters, the Eagles eventually opened up a 13-point lead before St. Edward (3-2) began to climb back into it.
That lead had shrunk to just three points at 50-47 after Eddie O’Halloran (game-high 18 points) canned two free throws, but Johnathan Harrell picked up steals at half court on two straight possessions and turned them into layups on the other end, the second of which was a spinning left-hander that pushed the lead to 56-49 with 1:50 to go.
The Eagles closed the game on an 11-2 run, making five of their six free throws down the stretch while holding the Green Wave to 3-for-15 shooting in the final quarter.
“I was hustling because I didn’t do that in the first half, and I felt I needed to do better and hustle more,” Harrell said. “I felt I needed to make a couple of those plays.”
Harrell led the Eagles with 14 points, while Jake Hanson had 13 to go along with seven rebounds and C.J. Schutt tossed in 11.
Joliet Catholic 65, IMSA 38 — The Titans trailed 36-14 at the half and fell to the Hilltoppers in the tournament’s opening game. James Rea led IMSA with seven points.
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