Boys basketball: Avon falls short in opener to Lakewood

AVON — While most team's have had a week of games under their belts, Avon's barely had a scrimmage at full strength, and though there was much anticipation for the Eagles' season opener, in the end there were just too many kinks they haven't had time to work out. Lakewood, having had a tough opening week itself with St. Edward and Strongsville on the schedule, pushed the pace on the Eagles and kept them out of rhythm enough to escape with a 54-51 win Friday, spoiling Avon's home opener. "There was a lot of anticipation coming to this game," Avon guard Tyson Ziegler said. "Everyone was talking about it at school today, so everyone's got a little jitters. Some of us thought we had to take over and when we really didn't, we needed to play as a team and that hurt us tonight." The Eagles had a difficult time stopping Lakewood guards Lucas Seguine and Luke Vannucci — particularly Seguine, who led all scorers with 25 points, including 13 at the free throw line. Vannucci added 12 points. It wasn't their skill that caught them off guard necessarily, as Avon knew how good the pair was prior to facing them, but with the Rangers having already played two games and the Eagles not seeing game speed yet, the pace forced them into some bad decisions on both ends of the floor. "I think on offense, we didn't run sets very well," Ziegler said. "Including me, we kind of went one-on-one. We wanted to take over because we were losing. Defensively, we knew they had two really good guards coming into this game and we wanted to limit their points and they still had, like, 40 points combined, so I think we could have done a better job on that." Avon (0-1) came out strong, taking quality shots and staying locked in on defense. The Eagles had an 18-15 lead after the first quarter and a ton of momentum when Zane Austin opened the second with a 3-pointer to put his team up 21-15. But when you're playing a good team, it all comes down to the details, and that's where Avon's late start to the season made the difference. "We've been preaching details this year," Avon coach Mike Fitch said. "We had a couple possessions where if a pass is a foot closer to us, we get a layup. We're down four and we make a bad pass and it goes out of bounds. I think a couple decisions we made offensively could have gone a little better. We really haven't had a full scrimmage together, so this was the first time kind of seeing real speed and a real game. You've just got to work the things out. "Every year we deal with it," he added of the late start. "Normally, it's the third or fourth game for another team, so it's not an excuse. Luckily, it was at home. We had a big crowd. (We) disappointed them a little bit, but our kids are going to stay positive and fight through. We lost to a really good team. A kid scored 25 points on us and it wasn't by luck. The kid's really good." Ziegler was one of three Eagles in double figures, scoring 17 points, while Nathan Farley had 11 and Zane Austin had 10. "In the locker room our coach just preached that we were going to hit adversity in this game (and) I actually thought we did a pretty good job handling adversity," Ziegler said. "That's a really good team. They have two really good guards, so, the way we handled adversity, I thought it was the way we know how to. We tried our best and they came out on top. They played really good tonight." "We'd rather play a game like that against a good team and learn from it," Fitch added. The Eagles have a few days off before traveling to Elyria on Thursday to begin Southwestern Conference play.