Beachwood Buries Edgewood 76-54

Edgewood gave Beachwood all they could muster in the third quarter, scoring 24 points. But at the end of the day the Bison proved to be too much, countering with 23 of their own en route to a 47-point second half and a 76-54 victory. The win advances Beachwood to the second round of the Div. II District Tournament.

Senior Jeremiah Townes had a monster night for the Bison. He led all scorers with 29 points and added five rebounds. Freshman John Davis scored 16 points and harassed the Warriors in transition, tallying four steals.

“That’s been the trend for the last 12 games,” Beachwood Head Coach Jason Pecjak said. “We’re getting balanced scoring while other guys who are not scoring are doing the little things we need them to do when they get in the game.”

Sophomore Jordan Richardson was ferocious on the glass, leading all rebounders with eight, half of them coming in the fourth quarter.

Edgewood left plenty of points on the floor. Despite getting great looks in transition, the Warriors blew a number of point-blank layups and those miscues allowed the Bison to control the first half. Beachwood led 17-11 after the first quarter and pulled away in the second, outscoring Edgewood 12-5.

“[Transition defense] hasn’t really been an issue with us so that kind of caught us off guard,” Pecjak said. “They did a good job getting the ball out and going.”

Edgewood senior Peter Mackey came out of the locker room blazing, scoring all of Edgewood’s 12 points off four of five 3-point shooting. Mackey led the Warriors with 22 points; however, it wasn’t enough. Townes answered with two threes of his own while Davis and Andrew Somogyi supplemented with easy buckets.

“John and our wings are playing well,” Pecjak said. “It helps when we have guys who shoot well and get them out of the zone.”

Townes put an exclamation mark on the third quarter with an emphatic dunk. While the Warriors outscored the Bison by one point (24-23), the momentum was with Beachwood and they closed out the game with a 24-14 fourth quarter.

The second round of the Div. II District Tournament is Saturday with Beachwood taking on Painesville Harvey at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland. Tipoff is 8 p.m. Harvey received a bye to the second round of the tournament.

“We’re not going change what we do,” Pecjak said. “We play the way we play. We’re just going to do our homework with [Harvey] and see what they do offensively.”