Tough tests pay off for Aurora Central

Nate Drye figured the up-and-down regular season his Aurora Central team endured in the rugged Suburban Christian Conference prepared his team well for the Class 3A Sycamore regional.

The Chargers' coach had it figured correctly.

Aurora Central employed a zone defense Wednesday night that in effect threw a bucket of ice water on what had been a red-hot Kaneland team to secure a 63-53 victory and advance to the regional final against Rochelle on Friday night.

The Chargers also shot the ball well, with guard Ryan Harreld pouring in a game-high 22 points fueled by four 3-pointers, three of which came in the first half when Aurora Central seized control and never looked back.

Aurora Central (14-13) also got a big boost from 6-4 junior center Robert DeMyers, who yanked down a game-high 12 rebounds to go with 11 points and 4 blocked shots.

It all offset a team-high 17 points for Kaneland senior Chaon Denlinger, who also canned four 3-pointers, and 12 points from freshman Daniel Helm, who was plagued with foul trouble.

"I don't really worry about our regular season record because we play an extremely difficult schedule to get us prepared for the postseason," Drye said. "This is easily a 20-win team against our level of competition, but we played up (against better teams) all season because we wanted to get better for this week."

That experience paid off quickly, as Aurora Central jumped out to a 25-16 lead after a first quarter in which 10 Chargers played and hit 10 of 14 shots from the floor.

"We made shots and I thought we also did a great job running the floor tonight," Drye added. "We wanted to get out and run and get out to a lead, and after a couple of minutes I thought we really started running the floor and finding Robert (DeMyers) a lot in the middle and just pushing the pace."

With Harreld blasting in two 3s in the second quarter, the Chargers maintained a 36-28 lead at halftime.

"When I am knocking down the open shots, it opens everything else up," Harreld said.

A good sign for Kaneland (17-9) was the work inside by Helm, who had 12 points at halftime. The bad sign was that Helm picked up his fourth foul early in the second half and never scored again.

It allowed the Chargers to march to a 50-38 lead at the end of three quarters, with the exclamation point coming on a wild loose-ball scramble that ended with a power drive to the basket at the buzzer by Kent Brauweiler.

"They ran the floor really well and that No. 33 (DeMyers) is like a gazelle out there, he just flies, and then he is so strong and jumps so quick," said Kaneland coach Brian Johnson, whose team came into the game with eight straight wins.

DeMyers also showed a flair for the dramatic. His thunderous dunk off a fast break, after another wild scramble for the ball under the Kaneland basket, was a crushing blow because it gave the Chargers a 58-47 lead with 1:34 left in the game.

"It felt great, it was just icing on the cake," DeMyers said of the dunk. "The fans knew it was over then."

When Denlinger answered with a 3-point basket at the 1:26 mark, Auorora Central kept its composure.

"We felt the trouble (in solving the Chargers' zone), but we shouldn't have felt it," a disappointed Denlinger said. "We practiced against it and the middle of the zone was open all of the time, but we just didn't get the ball into the middle."

The Chargers sank four free throws down the stretch, and DeMyers blocked a driving shot by Helm, who fouled out trying to wrestle for the loose ball at the 1:02 mark.

"We kind of ground it out in the second half, and the fourth quarter was kind of ugly," Drye said. "But you kind of expect that in a game like this because you have a big enough lead to where you don't want to take bad shots, but you also want to be able to get off some shots."

Drye knew his team could control the game's pace if it could get ahead.

"It's really hard to make up points against our zone, because you can't do anything fast," Drye said. "They were stuck in the position where they were behind, but couldn't get any quick points and that was a key to the game for us."

Johnson praised his team's effort and season.

"These kids worked hard and won 17 games and won a conference championship and I am so proud of them," Johnson said. "They have nothing to hang their heads about."