Boys basketball: Eastland denies Aurora Christian return trip to 1A state tournament
Eastland never trailed against Aurora Christian during Monday’s Class 1A DeKalb supersectional at the Convocation Center on the campus of Northern Illinois University.
Aurora Christian hung tough until the Cougars finally pulled away in the fourth quarter. Eastland held the Eagles scoreless for more than four minutes in the decisive quarter to earn the 51-43 victory.
Eastland (33-4) advances to Thursday morning’s state semifinal against Peoria Christian at the State Farm Center in Champaign.
“These guys have been really driven and motivated and put in a ton of work in the off-season,” Eastland coach Tyler Zumdahl said. “It’s really cool to see that hard work and dedication pay off and make winning plays on the biggest stage and get us down to state.”
Aurora Christian (19-13) had pulled to within 34-31 after Jacob Baumann’s drive in the lane that he turned into a three-point play with 6:26 left to play.
The Eagles had opened the final quarter trailing 32-25 so Baumann’s basket was a big one, but the Cougars answered with a 7-0 run.
“I feel like that’s just how basketball goes,” Baumann said. “It’s a game of runs. Coach says it all the time. I feel like when you get the momentum, you got to keep it going, keep the intensity on defense and everything. When the help side fails and can’t get back into it they leave wide open shots.”
Peyton Spears (7 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists) sparked the run for the Cougars with a nice move inside. Zyacn Haverland (8 points) had a pair of baskets inside and Adam Awender scored on a drive.
Eastland was able to frequently get to the basket, scoring 38 of its points in the paint while limiting Aurora Christian to just 16 points down low. The Cougars also enjoyed a 22-13 rebounding edge and didn’t allow any second chance points because they didn’t allow the Eagles a single offensive rebound.
“I thought we did a really good job of boxing out,” Zumdahl said. “I thought we were really physical. We really found guys. It’s always key to not give extra possessions, so our ability to turn them over and not give up offensive rebounds was a big key.”
Baumann led the Eagles with 13 points and 4 assists, Asa Johnson added 11 points and Jordan Weeks had 5 rebounds.
“(Baumann and Johnson) are juniors in theory, but they played a lot of games and played downstate,” Aurora Christian coach Dan Beebe said. “They are essentially seniors in leadership and mindset. We get them back and the three sophomores that started (Preston Morel, Joe DeCort and Weeks) started as sophomores early in the season, but by the end of the tear were grizzly veterans, too. The same thing can be said for James Baker. He started for us a large part of the year and he came along really strong. Landon Schuster is our only senior, which is unfortunate. It will be nice to have more experience (next year). The beginning of the year was truly Basketball 101. Trying to teach the game of basketball the way we want to play it."