Eagles Soar to Comeback Victory
On Friday night, the East Aurora Blue Devils came into a packed crowd at Lake Shore high school to take on the Eagles. The two squads came into the game riding a four-game winning streak, and in the end, this conference matchup did not disappoint.
The Blue Devils are a squad that plays unselfish basketball; that was on full display in the opening minutes with six different players putting points on the scoreboard, including two three-pointers from Matteo Duennebacke and Cam Pierrot.
East Aurora finished the quarter up 16-8.
The second quarter began with Ian Moog hitting a three along the right wing, which gave his Blue Devil team a 19-8 lead, which would extend to 28-19 to close out the half.
Will Covington, who leads East Aurora in scoring, put up 10 points in the third quarter; Blue Devils carried a 45-35 lead heading into the final quarter.
The fourth quarter then showed what a team that Lake Shore is: a team that doesn’t give up. The Eagles stormed out of the break and put up an 8-1 run to start. Colin Herzog later hit a big three-pointer to tie the game at 46.
After a missed free-throw, Zach Evans grabbed the rebound and brought it up court, then aggressively drove in and popped up for shot. It went off the backboard and in, which put his team up 48-46 with a little over two minutes remaining in the game. From there the Eagles were able to hold on and defeat East Aurora 51-47.
Eagles head coach Brett Lyford knew that Duennebacke and Covington were going to be an issue if they weren’t shut down.
“We talked more about that at half time, being able to do that.. being able to go out and stop those guys and try to make someone else beat us on their team,” Lyford said. “We did that in the second half, we got those big steals, we played a little bit more aggressive defensively.”
Evans, Herzog and Keith White are the three main scorers for Lake Shore, but it was Thomas Michael who came off the bench and put up 14 points, 12 of them in the paint while being an anchor on defense.
“I like Thomas’ aggressiveness, his athletic ability. He doesn’t coward from anything. He’s gonna give you points in the paint and he can step out,” Lyford said.
With this win, Lake Shore extends their winning streak to five and picks up their eighth win on the year. They’ll face off against Springville on Tuesday, January 28th at home.
For East Aurora, their four-game winning streak comes to an end and they fall to 8-5 on the season. They will host the Iroquois Chiefs on Tuesday, January 28th.