Aurora Central stays hot, blows out St. Edward
The St. Edward boys basketball team had no answer for Anthony Kelley and Aurora Central Catholic.
Kelley, a senior on the Chargers, scored a game-high 20 points and added 10 rebounds in ACC's 68-34 win over the Green Wave in Aurora in both the home and Suburban Catholic Conference opener Friday.
"Bottom line, they are a very good team," St. Edward coach Keith Chuipek said.
"(Kelley) is tough, he's going to be a player. He is a player...if they don't go far in the playoffs, I'll be surprised."
Kelley was on early, as he scored the first 5 points of the game as part of an ACC 10-0 run. The first basket of the game, however, wasn't scored until the 5:04 mark with the second one following a minute and a half later.
"It was real nice to get off to a good start," Kelley said. "Definitely a positive for us. We had a good start, but it was a little slow. We needed to relax after getting those first home-game jitters."
St. Edward (3-2, 0-1) first got on the board after netting a pair of free throws from Zach Von Ahnen with 1:02 remaining in the quarter. The Green Wave trailed a modest 10-5 after Riley Coleman's steal and banked-in 3-point buzzer beater that capped the quarter.
Those 5 points were part of a 9-0 St. Edward run. It never led, but came as close as 10-9 after a 3-pointer from Coleman.
The rest of the second quarter, however, was all ACC (5-0, 1-0), as it answered the Green Wave's run by capping the first half outscoring them 18-5. That included a 13-0 run, led by Mike Adams' 6 points. By the break, the Chargers had their largest lead of the game at that point, 28-14.
The fourth quarter was all ACC, as it scored the first 11 points of the quarter for a 54-28 lead after another basket from Adams. The Chargers' largest lead of the game was the final, thanks to Tyler Goodson's putback at the buzzer. They held the Green Wave to just a pair of 3-pointers in the final frame.
"I was really happy with our defensive effort all along," ACC coach Nate Drye said.
In addition to Kelley, Adams finished with 13 points, a game-high 17 rebounds (3 less than the entire Green Wave) and a pair of blocks.
Fellow post player Nick Czaja tallied 11 points, 6 rebounds, 2 blocks and 2 steals. Both players posted solid games despite being in early foul trouble.
"We didn't take advantage of that at all," Chiupek said.
Dix was the only player from St. Edward to finish in double-digits with 11 points, including three 3-pointers.