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West Aurora rolls past Bartlett

Last week West Aurora's boys basketball team dunked its way to its second straight Upstate Eight Valley title. This week the Blackhawks were simply unmerciful in their quest to make their title unblemished, and their 69-40 win over Bartlett Wednesday certainly did the trick, giving West Aurora a 9-0 Valley record.

Led by Camron Donatlan's 21 points and 3 steals and Jared Crutcher's 12 points and 7 rebounds, West Aurora (20-4) ran, ran and ran its win streak to 12 and stayed undefeated in 2018, with its last loss coming on December 30 to Lockport at the Pontiac Holiday Tournament.

So without a loss since, an undefeated UEC Valley conference title and an unblemished 2018 to boot, is it safe to say the pressure's off?

"I don't know if the pressure's ever off," Blackhawks coach Brian Johnson said of his second-seeded team in the upcoming Class 4A Romeoville sectional. "When you take over a program that's historically known there's always pressure every year but it's nice that the kids have bought into what we're doing."

There was also a buy in to the sentiment of not having a letdown with the conference clinched last Friday. With Bartlett being a tough venue to play at, West Aurora stayed focused and mainly used a 12-0 run bridging the first and second quarters to blow it open while Bartlett (13-12, 6-3) was the complete opposite with 3 technical fouls.

"We came into the game with a lot of energy because my whole four years here at West I never got a victory here," Donatlan said. "This is my first victory here and we had to come out with a lot of energy. They play with their heart when they're at home, the atmosphere in here, their fans are real loud."

West Aurora led by 9 after one quarter, 18 at the half and by 25 after three. The Blackhawks shot 48 percent from the floor and had 3 players total double digits, including Ben Young (10 points), who drained two 3-pointers. After Donatlan drained a 3 with 1:20 left in the first quarter, Crutcher added a dunk to start the second quarter and later ended the run on a putback with 6:20 to go and it was 26-10 in a flash for the Blackhawks, a stretch that put Bartlett away for good. West Aurora was also 15 of 21 from the stripe and took good care of the ball, only committing 11 turnovers.

"Coach told us every time we play Bartlett they're going to get in our heads, they're going to play scrappy, they're going to play hard, they're going to make us work," Crutcher said. "We realized that right from the start and we came out good and they started getting chippy with us. They took themselves out of the game and we turned it on with our pressure."

Bartlett survived the first wave the Blackhawks brought forth in the first quarter but turned the ball over 8 times in the second quarter and finished with 18 total. West Aurora's pressure also gave the Hawks a 36.1 percent clip from the field. Ben Tompson led Bartlett with 10 points while Tomas Vikonis had 7 points.

"It is what it is," Hawks coach Jim Wolfsmith said. "If you don't play well good teams are going to beat you. They came with energy and we didn't come out with any. By the time we decided to come out with energy the game was over."

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