High school basketball: Open Door's Jai'den Guerra-Howard powers Black to win over Gray at all-star game

LORAIN — Once Jai'den Guerra-Howard got going, not even a team of all-stars could slow him down. The Open Door sophomore led a late first-half charge to give his team a halftime lead, then carried that momentum into the second half for a game-high 19 points to lead the Black jerseys to a 100-87 win over the Grey jerseys in the Lorain County All-Star rising stars game hosted by Lorain High School. "This was fun," said Guerra-Howard, who was named the game's MVP. "I know a lot of these guys. It was a really good experience." He wasn't the only rising star to shine for the Black Team. Elyria's Jayden Crutcher finished with 14 points and connected on 4-of-9 from 3-point range. His teammate — Mateo Medina — hit all but two of his nine field goals for 16 points. And Avon's Max Emerine connected for three 3-point field goals, scoring 11 points. The Grey team was led by North Ridgeville's Jake Boynar, who finished with 16 points. Grant Hartley added 14, leading all scorers at halftime with 12 points in helping the Grey Team build a 37-29 lead through the first 17 minutes of the two 20-minute half game. At that time, it looked as if Boynar or Hartley were the front-runners for the MVP as the Grey Team was in control and Guerra-Howard hadn't scored. He changed quickly, scoring seven points in the final 1:16 of the half to not only put the Black Team up 42-41, but emerge as his team's leading scorer. "I've worked hard for this," Guerra-Howard said. "I was out a little bit because I was injured, so it feels good to come back." The rising stars game was one of four events held during the All-Star festivities, which opened with a 3-point shootout and a slam dunk contest. Emerine, along with Walsh and Aden Gregory, reached the finals of the 3-point shootout. The event used a standard 25-ball, five position, format for the shootout, with the last ball of each rack worth two points. Walsh led the first round with 20 points while Emerine and Gregory tied with 19. Both Walsh and Gregory connected on another 19 points, needing to go to a 30-second shootout to settle the contest. Gregory scored six points, and Walsh responded with 13 — including a run of seven-straight makes — to take the title. "Once the one went in I saw a ton go in," Walsh said. "Top of the key is definitely my favorite spot. I wanted to get there when I was kind of feeling it. It was pretty exciting, I was really just going out there to shoot." The dunk contest also was decided by a dunk off after four contestants — Amherst's Nick Hamrlik, Clearview's Jalin Ferenzi, Wellington's Jayden Roberts and Avon Lake's Isaac Richardson — advanced to the finals. Each finalist got two attempts, with both Hamrlik and Ferenzi going for the grand slam on their first attempt, but running out of time and winding up with no points. Hamrlik attempted to leap over a teammate for a dunk and almost succeeded twice. Ferenzi tried to turn a high bouncing pass into a whirlwind, but couldn't finish the attempt each time. Roberts and Richardson finished with final scores of 43 with Richardson winning the dunk off. "I didn't know what else to do, so I got to the 3-point line and did the best dunk I could do," Richardson said. "I was running out of ideas. All I had was the windmill and the double clutch so I didn't know what else to do." Contact Chris Sweeney at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on Twitter. Black Team 100, Grey Team 87 BLACK TEAM (100): Jai'den Guerra-Howard 8-1-19, Luke Vannucci 1-0-3, Mateo Medina 7-0-16, Griffin Turay 2-0-5, Konner Roddick 3-0-7, Jayden Crutcher 5-0-14, Vincent Berardi 2-1-6, Mathew Stuewe 3-0-6, Max Emerine 4-0-11, Isaac Richardson 4-1-9, Cayden Hinderman-Powell 2-0-4. Totals 41-3-100. GREY TEAM (87): Ryan Walsh 3-0-8, Colin Stewart 0-0-0, Grant Hartley 6-0-14, Ryan Runser 2-0-5, Asiah Kielian 6-0-12, Tyson Zeigler 5-0-11, Nathan Borling 2-0-5, Anthony Januzzi 2-0-6, Jake Boynar 8-0-16, Avery Young 0-0-0, Isaac Thompson 5-0-10. Totals 39-0-87. Black 42 54 — 100 Grey 41 46 — 87 3-point goals: Black 15-31 (Crutcher 4, Emerine 3, Howard-Guerra 2, Medina 2, Berardi, Roddick, Turay, Vannucci), Grey 9-28 (Hartley 2, Januzzi 2, Walsh 2, Borling, Runser, Zeigler).