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Batavia fends off West Aurora's comeback

What seemed like it would be a walk in the park for the Batavia boys basketball team turned into a harrowing finish against West Aurora Saturday.

Batavia built a big second-quarter cushion at the 27th Annual Jim and Sylvia Roberts Night of Hoops and led by 16 points at halftime. Yet, the Bulldogs had to sweat out a 55-53 victory over the comeback-minded Blackhawks.

Batavia senior Jayden Johnson split a pair of free throws with 12 seconds left to make it a 2-possession game.

The Blackhawks drew within a basket on 6-foot-5 senior Axel Motola's short shot from the lane with seven seconds remaining. However, Batavia did not inbound the ball and the clock expired to seal the nonconference win.

"We just kind of hung on," Batavia coach Jim Nazos said. "We just grinded through it. Playing well in the first half gave us a margin there."

Batavia can point to its first-half shooting as a key to the victory, led by Johnson. After missing his first attempt, the 6-6 senior sank 7 of his next 8 shots, including four straight 3-point attempts. He made 7 of 11 first-half field-goal attempts and 5 of 6 from 3-point range.

Johnson had help. Collectively, Batavia (12-9) made 14 of 23 first-half shots, 8 of 15 from beyond the arc.

The Bulldogs led 16-9 after a quarter. They gained wider separation by sinking their first 5 shots of the second quarter while the Blackhawks missed 6 of their first 7. That translated to a 13-3 Batavia run.

West Aurora (6-16) got back in the game by crashing the boards. Whereas Batavia outrebounded the Blackhawks 13-9 in the first half, the visitors dominated the boards 19-9 in the final two quarters.

Multiple second-chance scoring opportunities led to points. That effort was led by Motola. He had 7 second-half rebounds, 5 on the offensive glass.

"Axel Motola came in and did a really nice job for us," West Aurora coach Brian Johnson said. "We started attacking more."

"They took the boards away from us so we couldn't get out and break," Nazos said.

West Aurora missed 11 of 19 free throws. Batavia made 7 of 12 fourth-quarter free throws to pull out the win. Johnson led all scorers with 26 points. Ethan Ivan added 10 points for Batavia.

"It shows grit and it shows we have toughness," Johnson said. "In 10 or 11 games when this comes down to the end, we want to be playing our basketball at that time. We want to show teams that we can still fight, show grit and come out with wins like that."

Kelvin Balfour led West Aurora with 23 points while Christian Nieves scored 11 points and Kenny Dyson finished with 10 points.

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