Batavia dumps Nazareth in Tosh opener

Batavia boys basketball coach Jim Nazos welcomes the opportunity to see unfamiliar competition come holiday tournament time.

"In the middle of the year, it's a great break from conference (play) but I think it also gets us ready for our conference," said Nazos.

The Bulldogs (8-2) opened first-round play of York's 44th annual Jack Tosh Holiday Classic on the right foot with their 45-31 victory over Nazareth (3-6) Tuesday afternoon in Elmhurst.

Sophomore Jayden Johnson scored a game-high 17 points while senior Eric Peterson added 14 points and a team-leading 6 rebounds for the Bulldogs.

"It's kind of fun just to take a nice, little break with family and come back to what we've been doing and play against different competition," said Peterson.

Johnson and Peterson combined for 9 of the Bulldogs' 14 third-quarter points as they extended a 21-15 halftime lead to a 35-21 bulge heading into the final period.

After their double-digit advantage was whittled to 6 at 27-21 following a 3-point basket by the Roadrunners' Patrick Siepman, the Bulldogs closed out the third quarter in fashion.

Their 8-0 run - that included Peterson's 2-handed dunk off a pinpoint backdoor pass from Kyle LeFevre and 6 free throws - came in handy during a game where the Bulldogs struggled somewhat from the field (13 of 32 - 40 percent).

"A big part of that I thought was 'Naz' (Nazos) telling us to calm down and to run our stuff because we knew we could wear them down," said Peterson. "We knew we could get open looks."

"I think we needed every one of them," Nazos said of his team's 4 backdoor plays that led to easy layups.

Batavia also outscored Nazareth 14-6 at the free-throw line, with Johnson, Peterson and senior point guard Riley Cooper (8 points, 4 rebounds) combining for 12 foul shots.

The Bulldogs shot 88 percent from the free-throw line.

"We did get to the free-throw line a lot," said Nazos. "I thought we hit some big ones."

Defensively, Batavia held Nazareth to 32 percent accuracy from the field (11 of 32).

"Early on, maybe we didn't shoot it well but defensively we did a pretty good job," said Nazos. "They're (the Roadrunners) are a team that has some shooters. They're a disciplined team but I thought we did a real good job playing defense and waited for us to spurt there in the third (quarter)."

Siepman came off the bench to pace the Roadrunners with 9 points.

"They started to pull away and it was a hard thing to recover from," admitted Nazareth coach Sean Pearson. "They made some shots when they needed to and we couldn't."

Batavia will face Highland Park in second-round play at 6 p.m. Wednesday.