Boys Basketball: Proviso West cruises past East Aurora

In a battle of teams with little to no varsity experience coming into the season, it took one late surge to put the game away for Proviso West Saturday.

The Panthers used a 19-4 run in the fourth quarter to pull away from winless East Aurora in nonconference action, 65-47. The win brought Proviso West to .500 on the season at 4-4, while dropping the Tomcats to 0-7.

“I don’t think we played well,” Proviso West coach Tommie Miller said. “We got a lot of breaks down the stretch, but we didn’t play well. I just think that we have to get back in the gym and get back to working on jump shots and defense. We didn’t play any defense.”

The Panthers did enough defensively to disrupt the young Tomcats, however. Trying to replace current Connecticut point guard Ryan Boatright has been a struggle for East Aurora, and it showed Saturday. The Tomcats turned the ball over a whopping 32 times in the loss.

“Our youth showed up,” East Aurora coach Wendell Jeffries said.

“We just didn’t have a guard that could take care of the ball against their pressure. We don’t have any experience there. Only thing we can do is throw them out there and let them get some experience.”

Proviso West took a 21-11 lead early in the second as junior Lawrence Moore ended the first quarter with a three-pointer and then started the second with another three and a rebound putback. The transfer led all scorers with 26 points Saturday. That came on the heels of a 25-point performance against York Friday.

“He’s been pretty much carrying the team in terms of scoring,” Miller said. “He’s been really solid for us.”

East Aurora managed to figure out Proviso West’s trapping defense after that, however. The Tomcats went on a 13-0 run to take a 24-21 lead with 3:25 left in the second. Larry Reynolds scored seven of his team-high 23 points in the quarter, as the Tomcats took a 29-27 lead into the break.

“We played a good second quarter,” Jeffries said. “I was very pleased with the second quarter.”

But Proviso West ended the third quarter on a 13-1 run to take control of the game. The closest East Aurora got in the fourth was 46-41 before the Panthers pulled away for good.

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