Boys basketball: Lorain pulls away from Avon with strong start to second half, heads to district

LORAIN — The Lorain Titans have high hopes for the postseason and, despite a slow start, were able to roll into the district semifinals Saturday night with a 77-62 Division I sectional final win over Avon. Lorain (15-8) will face Avon Lake on Tuesday at Elyria Catholic High School after the Shoremen dispatched Southwestern Conference foe Berea-Midpark 55-48 on the road Saturday night. Having faced Lorain just a couple of weeks ago to end the regular season, Avon (10-14) was ready for the Titans and came out firing. Dominic Rini, Seth Broadbent, Cole Warren and Brody Sheaves hit 3-pointers as the Eagles trailed just 23-20 after eight minutes and were still in it down just 35-29 at the half. But the first four minutes of the third quarter proved to be Avon's undoing as Lorain opened with a 13-3 run to push its lead to 48-32. Aaron Whitehead scored five of his game-high 21 points to go with baskets from Seth Wilson (16 points), Devante Jackson, Deonte Benejean (16) and Jordan Jackson (16). "We knew there were only 16 minutes left in the season, so we knew going to the second half we had to bring it out or our season was over," Whitehead said. "Coach (John Rositano) told us the first four minutes of the second half would reflect on the whole game." But even after Lorain's big run the Eagles weren't done, trimming their deficit to 50-43 as Mason Wiley scored four to go with 3-pointers from Warren and Rini. But Lorain clamped down on defense after that and Avon could pull no closer. Niko Pappas led Avon with 15 points, including a pair of 3-pointers, while Rini dropped in four threes on the way to 14 points, Warren had three threes and 13 points and Broadbent scored 10 points. "Our guys played extremely hard," Eagles coach Kevin Sapara said. "We played these guys a couple weeks ago and started out really slow. We wanted to make sure we didn't start slow (Saturday night) and we just wanted to hang in there the entire game." The Titans had other ideas though and came up with 12 steals, including three on consecutive possessions by Wilson early in the fourth leading to six straight points and a 64-47 lead. "We came out slow and you can't have that come tournament time," Wilson said. "Every possession is golden. They mean a lot and can make or break the game. My scoring wasn't there so I wanted to impact the game another way, so I said, 'let's play defense.'" Rositano was happy with the win if not his team's overall play. "The disappointing thing is we had three great practices leading up, and it just didn't translate like I thought for 32 minutes," he said. "We did a poor job of locations and they (Avon) took advantage." Contact James Brady at 329-7135 or jbrady_ct@yahoo.com. Lorain 77, Avon 62 AVON (62): Niko Pappas 5-3-15, Brosy Sheaves 1-0-3, Seth Broadbent 4-0-10, Mason Wiley 3-0-6, Cole Warren 5-0-13, Dominic Rini 5-0-14, Connor Allomong 0-1-1. Totals 23-4-62. LORAIN (77): Aaron Whitehead 8-3-21, Jordan Jackson 5-3-16, Devantae Jackson 3-0-6, Deonte Benejean 7-1-16, Jaco Lee 1-0-2, Jamir Billings 0-0-0, Seth Wilson 7-2-16. Totals 32-9-77. Avon &emsp;&emsp; &emsp;&emsp;20 9 &emsp;&emsp;17 16 — &emsp; 62 Lorain &emsp;&emsp; &emsp;&emsp;23 12 23 19 —&emsp;&emsp;77 Three-point goals: Avon 12-21 (57 percent, Rini 4, Warren 3, Broadbent 2, Pappas 2, Sheaves); Lorain 4-15 (27 percent, Whitehead 2, J. Jackson, Benejean). Field goals: Avon 23-48 (48 percent); Lorain 32-57 (56 percent). Free throws: Avon 4-10 (40 percent); Lorain 9-19 (47 percent). Rebounds: Avon 25, Lorain 34 Turnovers: Avon 16, Lorain 9