Aurora Central 80, Orr 65

One of the coaches from the Orr boys basketball team kept saying over and over, "That No. 20 is killing us."

He couldn't have been more correct, as the "No. 20" he was referring to was Aurora Central Catholic senior Mark Adams.

Adams scored a game-high 26 points -- 18 in the second half -- as he led the No. 4 seeded Chargers to an 80-65 win over the Chicago-based No. 13 seed Orr in the Class 3A regional semifinal at ACC Tuesday.

With the win, ACC (24-4) not only set the school record for wins, but the Chargers advanced to the regional final and will play either Glenbard South or rival Marmion, which play tonight at ACC at 7:30 p.m. Orr closed its season 15-13.

Adams wasn't the only one doing damage against the Spartans. Anthony Kelley scored 12 of his 19 points in the second half, while Mike Adams posted a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds to go with his 3 blocks.

"The kids were excited, and I thought they were ready to play," ACC coach Nate Drye said. "It was a really good win for us. (Orr) is a really good team…our kids had to play well to win tonight."

The final score might be a bit deceiving. The game was close until ACC broke away in the fourth quarter. With the Chargers ahead just 58-51 with 6:47 left to play, they upped their lead with an 11-0 run, which included a steal from Mark Adams that should have gone out of bounds, but instead went to Kelley, who got the crowd going with his dunk.

The Chargers' largest lead was 20 points three times late in the game.

"(In the) fourth quarter, we kind of settled down and ran our offense," Kelley said. "That really helped us out."

That wasn't the case, however, at the start of the game. Orr led by as much as 18-9 in the first quarter after a 13-0 run.

"(Orr) came out on fire," Drye said. "I didn't think we were playing bad defense -- we were out there being aggressive -- they made some good shots."

The Chargers responded to that with a 21-2 rout that began at the end of the first and continued halfway into the second quarter. When the damage was done, ACC led 30-20 and outscored the Spartans 23-12 in the second quarter for a 36-30 halftime advantage.

After the run, ACC never trailed again. Orr came as close as 48-42 with 1:37 left in the third, but Mark Adams scored the next 6 points.

"It was a battle the whole game," Mark Adams said.