The Padua Bruins improved to 7-0 with a 67-45 victory at home over the Avon Eagles, thanks to a dominant third quarter.
Padua led 32-30 at the half, but outscored Avon 23-3 in the third and never looked back.
Bruins head coach Dan Brown credited his team’s defensive adjustments, as Padua held the Eagles to only 15 points in the second half.
“It was a lot of defensive adjustments. We saw how Avon was breaking our pressure and we just readjusted our alignment,” said Brown.
Much of that defensive pressure came from sophomore guard Alex Pillin, who swiped six steals on the night and fought for extra possessions, diving for loose balls and drawing fouls.
“She’s our motor,” said Brown.
“She puts her body out there on the line every game and she just attacks everything. She does so much for us that it’s noticeable when she’s not on the floor.”
While Pillin sparked the team on defense, senior guard Elena Rauhe led the way on offense, scoring a season-high 27 points.
Rauhe is averaging 18.8 points per game on the season and Brown could not be more proud of her leadership.
“Elena showed why she’s one of the best players in the area. She took over the game,” said Brown.
One of Rauhe’s highlights of the night was a fastbreak layup, right before the end of the first half, where the senior guard put a spin move on an Avon defender and flipped the layup home to give Padua a 32-30 lead.
It was yet another play from the senior that impressed her coach and all the crowd in attendance.
“She does some things every night, where I’m like ‘where did that come from?'” joked Brown.
Along with Rauhe, Ali Medaglia scored 15 points on the night, knocking down three shots from long range, and Alainna Conroy pitched in 10 points, as well.
Although Rauhe did the bulk of the scoring, Brown praised his team’s all-around effort, particularly on the defensive end, where Padua allows an average of only 37.3 points per game.
“We had so many kids put in different minutes for us tonight, defensively especially. We did a phenomenal job of just defensively wearing them down.”
Avon kept up in the first half, but points were hard to come by in the second for the Eagles, who were led by an 18-point performance from senior forward Shaylynn Davidson.
The Eagles fall to 4-5 overall and are 3-3 in Southwestern Conference play, in the midst of a competitive battle for the SWC title.
Avon will return to conference action on Jan. 4 at Westlake.
After roughly one month of play, Padua is one of just a handful of undefeated teams left standing in Northeast Ohio, but with wins over quality opponents, like Avon, Keystone (7-3), Holy Name (3-4) and Bedford (5-4), it makes the Bruins’ 7-0 start even more impressive.
Padua prides itself on playing a tough nonconference schedule, along with its competitive North Coast League, and still has some tough games ahead, including matches with Lake Ridge, Gilmour, and St. Joseph, among others.
“I wanted tournament type teams on our schedule,” the coach stated.
“We need teams like that to have that atmosphere and I even told our team tonight ‘this is like a one-and-done situation.’ We approach every game like we’re winning a tournament game and we did that tonight.”
Padua’s next game, coincidentally, happens to be in the Brunswick Holiday Tournament, where the Bruins will open up against the host Blue Devils on Thursday at 1:30 pm.
Padua will take on either Nordonia (6-2) or Berea-Midpark (5-1) on Friday at 2 pm, either of which will present a formidable challenge to the Bruins’ win-streak.
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