BY MIKE ROSE
Trevor Stroud, Josh Harter and Michael Rowland took over the game in the second half combining for 43 points to power the No. 1 Avon Braves past the No. 5 Le Roy Oatkan Knights 68-64 in overtime. With the win Avon makes its fifth consecutive sectional final appearance.
“This whole week we’re all saying we’re prepared to die, we’re willing to die,” Stroud said. “This team is full of heart. We all give our all, we all love each other, we’re all family. So that’s what makes this team special. Everybody’s coming out so hardworking and we just make big plays when it matters.”
The top-seeded Braves controlled the game early on but struggled to convert on open looks. They maintained a 12-8 lead after one before Le Roy found its footing in the second. Merritt Holly and Jean Agosto got rolling and helped the Oatkan Knights build a 22-19 lead into the half. Agosto tallied nine in the first half while Holly had eight. The trio of Stroud, Harter and Rowland were held to four points in the first half for Avon while Ryan Hillman kept the team within striking distance with nine.
In the third quarter, Le Roy began to take full momentum. Led by nine straight points from Holly, the lead opened up to as many as 11. Avon called a timeout and seemed to find its footing from there.
“We battled through adversity a lot this season and we played a lot of close games so I think those close games prepared us for tonight,” Harter said. “We’ve been in that situation before so we were ready.”
The Braves’ dynamic trio each knocked down a jumper before a Stroud triple cut the lead to four heading to the fourth. Down the stretch the duo of Holly and Agosto continued to impose their will inside, combining for 12 in the fourth. On the other side, it was Harter who drilled all the big shots late to keep the Braves in it, scoring seven of his 17 in the fourth quarter. Both teams came up empty with a chance to win it in regulation which pushed the game to the extra session.
In overtime, it was Stroud’s show. He scored 10 of his team-high 23 points in overtime, including back-to-back three-pointers that put the game on ice.
“Shooters shoot, you know,” Stroud said. “My coach lets me shoot anything, he knows I can shoot so we just keep pulling.”
“Trevor always says ‘shooters shoot’ because he launches them forever and when he makes them he’s tough,” Avon head coach Rob Fries said. “He was down early on himself but we’ve played them two times this year and both times we had like one good spurt and that was the difference. So we kept saying, ‘I hope we have one good spurt in us’ and we had it right there at the end. And that’s what he does, once he got going you knew he wanted the ball.”
Stroud added five rebounds, five assists and five steals while Harter chipped in five rebounds and five assists of his own. Rowland tallied nine points, all in the second half while Hillman scored 11 points with six rebounds. Holly ended his Le Roy career with 27 points and 18 rebounds while Agosto had 22 points and eight rebounds.
Avon will take on No. 3 Marcus Whitman in the Class B2 Finals on Friday at Blue Cross Arena after the Wildcats defeated No. 7 Wellsville in the other semifinal on Monday.
“I’ve seen them they’re very good,” Fries said. “We’ll have to keep playing the way we play, play with the same kind of toughness and hope some shots go down. The War Memorial is a whole different beast, crazy things happen there at times. We always talk you gotta survive and advance, we got through tonight and at least give ourselves a chance to play Friday but Whitman they’re tough. We’ll have our hands full.”
Tip-off of the finals is scheduled for 5 p.m. on Friday night.
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