DeMyers’ block sends Aurora C. to sectional finals
By turning in the defensive gem of the night, Aurora Central center Robert DeMyers saved the game for the Chargers and may have created a new statistic at the same time.
“I’d call it a block-slash-steal,” DeMyers said after his heroics helped vault Aurora Central to a 41-38 victory over Marian Central (14-17) in the Class 3A Woodstock North sectional semifinals.
DeMyers, who had 7 points and 8 blocked shots, created his block/steal with Aurora Central clinging to a 36-34 lead with a minute left when he thwarted a scoring attempt by Hurricane center Ben Krol that dropped jaws.
Krol, who had a game-high 15 points, powered inside in an attempt to tie the score and draw DeMyers’ fifth foul, but the Chargers’ junior center grabbed the ball just as Krol started to shoot and tore it away.
“It’s been the same thing the last two games,” DeMyers said of his last-minute blocks. “I just thought I am not going to go away from what I do best at the last second, so I might as well gamble, because if I don’t, it could have been the last game of the year.”
After DeMyers’ defensive stop, Ryan Harreld was fouled and knocked down two free throws with 41 seconds left. When a 3-point shot by Marian’s Jake Everly bounced off the rim and hit the top of the backboard, Aurora Central’s Anthony Andujar added another free throw for a 39-34 cushion with only 21 seconds left.
Tim Fernandez and Harreld each added a free throw in the final seconds to offset baskets by Marian’s AJ Mercurio and Max St. Clair and send Aurora Central (16-13) to Friday night’s sectional title game against Rockford East.
“That saved the game,” Aurora Central coach Nate Drye said of DeMyers big play. “Krol was working real hard and they were making a concerted effort to go into him, and Robert just made a play.
“That’s what he does,” Drye added. “He has long arms and great timing and a great knack for making big plays, and he saved us tonight.”
Harreld led the Chargers with 11 points and he found his shooting touch just in time, scoring 9 of those points in the second half and banging down two critical 3-pointers.
“The first half I struggled a lot, but coach told me to keep shooting and sooner or later it would fall,” Harreld said. “We knew their pressure was coming, but I think we handled it all right and got it done.”
Drye knew his team’s defense — a stingy 2-3 zone with DeMyers shutting down the middle — saved the season on a night when offense was hard to come by.
“It was obviously a very ugly game offensively, but I like to focus on how great we were defensively,” said Drye, whose team has now won five of its last six games. “If we talk about our offense, we’ll probably end up crying here. We ground it out and just barely did enough to get the win.”
Ultimately, the difference in the game was that Aurora Central managed five 3-pointers, while Marian Central had none.
Drye viewed all of the 3-point shots as keys, but pointed to two he felt were critical for his team.
Drye mentioned a 3-pointer that Paul Kaminski banged in after a timeout with five minutes left in the game that gave the Chargers’ their biggest lead of the night at 35-27.
“That was just huge because they kept chipping away at us and to get up by eight points in a game like this when the offenses were struggling was very big,” Drye said. “We’ve had that play in our arsenal, and we like it for a last-second play, but we struggled to score so much that we pulled it out a little earlier and thank God he made it.”
The other game-changing three came from sophomore Matt Meyers, a 3-point specialist, in the first half. With the Chargers struggling to make shots, Meyers came in and popped a 3-point shot that gave Aurora Central a 15-14 lead. After a fast-break basket by Harreld, the Chargers led 17-14 at the half.
“I thought when Meyers hit that shot, it was the biggest shot in the game, because we were behind most of the time up to that point,” Drye said. “After that, we were able to play with the lead most of the rest of the way.”
Marian Central (14-17) relied heavily on 6-6 senior Krol, who scored 11 of his 15 points in the second half on power moves inside or at the free-throw line, where he made 5-of-8. No other Hurricane scored more than 4 points.
“He definitely had the weight advantage and a little bit on the height and he used that very well,” DeMyers said of Krol’s effort.
Joey McEachern aided the Chargers’ cause with a team-team 8 rebounds and 4 difficult points on offensive putbacks, while Fernandez added 6 points, with 4 of those coming early on inside moves when Aurora Central was struggling to get good shots in the first quarter.
The Chargers did not miss a shot in the fourth quarter, but six turnovers limited their chances. Marian Central made only 3 of 15 shots in the fourth quarter, with two of those coming in the last 13 seconds when the Chargers held a 5-point lead.
The victory marked the second time ACC has beaten Marian Central in the past month, having topped the Hurricanes 75-66 on the Chargers’ home court during regular-season play.