Guth catches fire as ACC overcomes off night
The next time Aurora Central and Aurora Christian get together, more than Aurora private school bragging rights will be on the line.
It also will be a conference game for both schools in the new Suburban Christian Conference.
Fortunately for Aurora Christian coach Marc Davidson - and the rest of the SCC coaches - he won't have to deal with the Chargers' Anthony Kelley, Mike Adams and Nick Czaja.
Unfortuantely for Davidson and company, Jody Guth isn't going anywhere.
The Chargers junior gave his team a spark off the bench Tuesday, scoring a game-high 18 points on an otherwise off night for Aurora Central. A 7-4 first quarter set the tone for the kind of night it would be for both teams, with ACC eventually leaving Aurora Christian grinding out a 58-39 win.
"I just came in there and hit my shots kind of gave us momentum to win the game," said Guth, who finished second in the state's 3-point shootout last year but has been battling a stress fracture in his right foot this year.
The foot didn't look to be bothering him Tuesday, when he scored 9 points in both halves and hit four 3-pointers, included a half-hearted fling from 35 feet at the final buzzer when it first looked like he would just dribble out the clock.
"I knew he could shoot, I didn't know he was that good of a shooter," Aurora Christian coach Marc Davidson said. "He got it going, got some confidence, and the rim got a little bigger for him."
The Eagles (8-12) successfully took the Chargers' leading scorer Kelley out of the game early with a box-and-one, the first Kelley said he has seen this year. Kelley, averaging over 20 points a game and coming off a 31-point night Saturday, finished with 12 points, just two in the first half.
"That was not what we like to do," Kelley said. "We like getting out scoring, putting a bunch of points on the board. It semed like an ugly game. For our pace it was slow and we couldn't do what we usually do."
The Suburban Catholic champion Chargers (19-2) still led 24-13 at halftime after holding the Eagles to 4-of-22 shooting and forcing 11 turnovers.
"The first half we couldn't have done much worse offensively," Davidson said.
"We're not a great perimeter shooting team and we were definitely exposed for that tonight. I give them credit because their defense forced us into some tough shots."
Kelley scored 6 points in the third quarter, including another steal and breakaway slam, to help the Chargers stretch their lead to 19 points. Aurora Christian never got closer than 13 in the fourth quarter.
While Adams struggled with his shot, he did grab 11 rebounds and was a menace on defense with 5 steals. Brian O'Donnell joined Guth in providing solid bench play with two 3s for 6 points.
"We were pretty bad tonight," Aurora Central coach Nate Drye said. "We couldn't get anything going, we missed a lot of easy shots we normally make. We were't very crisp at all. It's nice to get a win when we play bad."
Nate Hill led Aurora Christian with 9 points and Luke Johnson added 8. Jordan Roberts chipped in 8 rebounds and 3 steals.