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Aurora Central buckles down to beat Westmont

Aurora Central Catholic had it, lost it, then pulled it together.

That meant Saturday's boys basketball game continued Westmont's hard-luck trend.

Visiting ACC saw a 16-point second-quarter lead dissolve due to the Sentinels' 3-point shooting. Aurora Central rallied and held Westmont scoreless the last 3:21 to secure a 55-48 Metro Suburban Conference crossover victory.

"I felt like we should have been ahead by a lot and we just let them hang around," said Chargers coach Nathan Drye. "Then they went on a little mini-run and 32 (Alex Pietrzak) didn't miss the entire game. Then we finally buckled down, got a few steals, made a few big baskets."

Pietrzak did miss, but ACC (6-9) suffered his marksmanship leading Westmont back from a 24-8 deficit at 5:40 of the second quarter. Three Pietrzak 3-pointers cut ACC's lead to 30-23 at halftime.

"We shot the ball pretty well today," said Pietrzak, who made five 3s and led all players with 19 points. "We rebounded well at times. We handled their press pretty well, we didn't have that many turnovers - which is good, for a change."

Westmont (4-10) tied the score 33-33 on a Zach Fisher 3-pointer and went up 36-35 on another Pietrzak 3. The senior guard's fifth and final 3, from the left baseline three seconds ahead of the buzzer, had the Sentinels ahead 41-40 after three quarters.

"We play well for stretches," said Westmont coach Craig Etheridge, "we just have not played a complete game yet."

Aurora Central ensured that as it again penetrated Westmont's 3-2 matchup zone.

Colin Dean and Dylan Bryant scored inside and Donovan Grunloh converted a putback to tie 46-46 with 5:24 left in the fourth quarter.

After steals by Dean and Grunloh, Danny Cwinski swished a baseline 3 for a 49-46 Chargers lead with 3:50 left.

Pietrzak converted Ben Juska's inbounds pass to get within a point, but Cwinski and Grunloh cut to the hoop for baskets and a 5-point lead. Brendan O'Brien - "the best game he's played all year," Drye said - followed with a key steal, his second.

"We've been really struggling with a lot of turnovers lately," O'Brien said, "but we stopped turning the ball over, started getting better passes, better looks at the basket. In practice we were talking about better shot selection, what's a good shot, what's a bad shot. I think that helped out a lot."

Grunloh scored 14 points and Bryant and O'Brien scored 11 for ACC, which outrebounded Westmont 32-19 with 12 offensive boards. Juska had 12 points and Qati Dalipi 11 for the hard-luck Sentinels.

"I think we've had eight games out of our losses now where we've actually led in the second half and found a way to give up that lead and not be able to recover," Etheridge said.

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