West Aurora stays unbeaten in Upstate Eight

Jules Williamson was the leading scorer for the second straight East Aurora-West Aurora Upstate Eight Conference boys basketball game this season.

But West Aurora had too many weapons in its arsenal in the 227th meeting between the century-plus rivals.

Kelvin Balfour led four West Aurora players in double digits with 15 points as the Blackhawks' balance was too much in a 73-55 victory over the Tomcats at a near-capacity West High Friday night.

West Aurora maintained its iron grip on the conference lead by extending its season-long league winning streak to 13 games while improving to 20-4 overall.

Williamson is over 1,000 points for the season as his 20 points paced all players for East Aurora (7-16, 5-7).

"We knew we had to pick up our defense and then we started hitting big shots," Balfour said. "We knew we had to have good practices this week and bounce back (after their first loss lost week in 12 games against St. Charles East)."

The Blackhawks' superlative backcourt of Marquise Walker and Traevon Brown combined for 26 points as each senior scored 13.

West Aurora undersized post Hezzy Salter added 11 points.

But Nick Williams also came off the bench to score 8 points for West Aurora; the Blackhawks' highly athletic Moshe Rogers did a little bit of everything in scoring 5 more points for West Aurora.

"We were feeding off our own energy coming into the second half," said Rogers, whose third-quarter 3-pointer helped offset the Tomcats hitting their first 4 shots out of the intermission. "An East-West game is definitely exciting. We were sharing the ball and being unselfish instead of being selfish."

Brown sandwiched back-to-back Walker 3-pointers in the first quarter with a steal and lay-in as the Tomcats would never lead again.

Six different West Aurora players scored in the second quarter as the Blackhawks' 8-for-9 free-throw shooting in the period was also instrumental in building a 39-23 lead at halftime.

Walker missing almost seven minutes of the second quarter with his second foul proved immaterial to the Blackhawks' spread at the break.

"That (reaching foul) was a big shock to me, but my teammates - as they always do - picked up the slack," Walker said. "They just get wins. We're trying to pile up the wins."

"That's a big formula for a winning program," East Aurora coach Ricky Robinson said of the Blackhawks' four players in double figures.

Josh Pryor had all 13 of his points after halftime for East Aurora.

In the schools' girls preliminary, Dajour "Cinnamon" Miles had a game-high 19 points in the Blackhawks' 57-42 win over their archrival.

The West High girls, who also received 14 points from senior swingman Keva Tomas, are 20-8, 11-5.