Avon Boys Celebrate Win On Senior Night

It was a night to remember for the boys basketball team on Friday.

After the fun festivities of Senior Night, the Eagles took the court and defeated Firelands, 58-44.

The seniors and their families will long remember being introduced to the crowd before the game. Years from now, they will still hear the cheers.

Coach Jim Baker hopes they also remember for a few weeks the way the Eagles got a little complacent after building a 32-11 halftime lead. They were outscored, 24-11, in the third quarter as the Falcons began hitting some shots and made a game of it.

"It wasn't one of our best performances, but I'd prefer to think of this game as a night of honoring our seniors and having a little fun," Baker said. "Once we got that big lead we lost focus, especially on the defensive end, in the third quarter.

"Credit Firelands, though. They kept playing hard."

Avon, which is seeded second in the upcoming Sectional Tournament at Westlake High School, improved to 13-6 overall and 10-3 in the West Shore Conference. Firelands fell to 4-15 and 2-11.

Baker started five seniors, which meant that junior star Claude Gray sat out the first few minutes. It didn't seem to matter as the Eagles built a 7-0 lead and led after one quarter, 14-4.

Senior Marvin Coleman scored seven of his game-high 18 points for Avon in the first half.

Gray finished with 11 points and helped get Avon back on track. He scored four points in the first minute of the fourth quarter, then passed to Coleman for a fast-break layup that put the Eagles ahead 49-37.

Avon's dynamic duo pretty much put it away with 3:47 remaining. Gray passed from the corner to Coleman, whose 3-pointer from the right wing made it 54-37.

The Eagles got 37 points overall from seniors. R.J. Kauffman scored eight, Connor Friss and Ryan Ladegaard had five apiece, Ryan Carge scored three and Alex Isaac hit a free throw. Joining Gray in scoring among juniors were Ryan Poyle (4) and Mike Maloney (3).

Baker believes the Eagles will be all business by the time they open tournament play on March 5 against the winner of the Padua vs. Keystone contest.

"We're happy with the second seed," he said. "Rocky River is number one and Bay got number three, so that shows how tough our league is this year.

"There are things for us to work on. Hopefully we will get re-energized and make this fun. There are no do-overs. We're going to have to play hard, but the important thing is to have fun and enjoy the rest of the season."

Firelands has only one senior on its roster. The Falcons were led by juniors Kyle Smith and Joey Ritz, with 13 and 10 points, respectively.

Earlier, Ralph Smith led the Avon JV squad to a 54-23 win. The Eagles broke from a narrow 9-8 lead by outscoring the Falcons 34-7 over the middle two periods.