Boys Basketball: Avon Lake falls to tough Brunswick

AVON LAKE — The Avon Lake Shoremen faced a stiff season-opening test Friday against a highly touted Brunswick team. They kept it close initially but ultimately fell 74-58 in the non-league matchup. The Shoreman trailed just 12-9 after the first quarter with Liam Besaw scoring five points. He finished with 21. "I work on my 3-point shot a lot," said Besaw, who was 4-for-7 on 3-pointers. "It is something that I take pride in. Threes are kind of something I shoot the most." His second hoop pulled Avon Lake within 8-7 and Tucker Budzak (eight points, five rebounds) answered a Sean Barnett 3-pointer with a nice putback to make it 11-9 with 2:05 left to play. The second quarter belonged to the Brunswick duo of Sean Barnett (35 points, six rebounds, four assists, five steals) and All-Ohio point guard Trey Drexler (32 points, five assists). "They dropped 60-something points combined," Besaw said. "It was hard to stay up on them because they can shoot from deep. We tried to figure it out. It sort of worked at the end, but they can drive too. It sort of just fell apart." The pair began to catch fire from behind the 3-point line, with Barnett knocking down three of his game-high eight threes and Drexler making three of his five as Brunswick began pulling away and led 36-22 at the break. Avon Lake was outscored 17-4 in the first four minutes of the quarter, with Christopher Gaulding (14 points, seven rebounds) and Besaw accounting for the four points. A traditional 3-point play from Tucker Budzak (eight points, five rebounds) finally slowed the surge. The last two Brunswick baskets of the first half came on a pair of putbacks from Adin Evert (four points) who had 10 big offensive rebounds on his way to a game-best 17 rebounds. The hot 3-point shooting of the Blue Devils continued after the break, with Barnett and Drexler continuing to light it up as Brunswick drained 13-of-35 from behind the arc while the Shoremen were a respectable 5-of-11. "It's our very first game and they are two great players," Gaulding said. "We can improve across the season. They had 67 combined. If we can stop two players I think we could be a really good team this year." Shooting was not a problem for Avon Lake, with the team making over half of its shots (25-of-48) overall, but the 3-point deficit and 19 turnovers kept it from staying close. "Our offense was pretty good," Gaulding said. "I feel like we could have been better distributing the ball more. A lot of times it was one pass and a shot. If we swing the ball more, we have a better chance of making shots and beating teams." Brunswick 74, Avon Lake 58 Brunswick&emsp;12&emsp;24&emsp;27&emsp;11&emsp;—&emsp;74 Avon Lake&emsp;9&emsp;13&emsp;16&emsp;20&emsp;—&emsp;58 Brunswick (74): Luke Stella 0-0-0, Sean Barnett 13-1-35, Adin Evert 2-0-4, Blayke Hamilton 0-1-1, Trey Drexler 11-5-32, Abi Prince 1-0-2, Brandt Almady 0-0-0, Dirk Ziegler 0-0-0. Totals 27-7-74. Avon Lake (58): Christopher Gaulding 7-0-14, J.J. Bradley 2-0-4, Tucker Budzak 3-2-8, Liam Besaw 8-1-21, Mason Ambrose 0-0-0, Jacob Cooke 1-0-3, Luke Gillespie 3-0-6, Jeffery Ball 1-0-2, Juewlius Ross 0-0-0, Chase Cartwright 0-0-0 . Totals 25-3-58. Three-point goals: Barnett 8, Drexler 5, Besaw 4, Cooke. Rebounds: Brunswick 30 (Evert 17), Avon Lake 26 (Gaulding 7). Assists: Brunswick 13 (Drexler 5), Avon Lake 9 (Ambrose, Besaw, Bradley 2. Junior varsity: Brunswick, 57-30.