Avila Battles Back but Can't Top Benedictine

ATCHISON, Kan. – Avila men's basketball dug itself out of a huge early hole to impressively snag a second-half lead, but Benedictine (2-1) rallied back late to edge the Eagles (1-2) by a final count of 66-57 on Tuesday night in Atchison.

Just a couple of days after their road loss to Peru State, the Eagles nearly found themselves staring down another large deficit against one of their former Heart of America foes on Tuesday against the Ravens. After Tremaine Banks got the scoring started for the visitors, Benedictine steadily worked out to a 15-3 lead five minutes into the game, and extended that lead out to 25-8 with 11:11 left in the first half, forcing an Avila timeout. It had been a challenging start for the Eagles in all phases, but, from that point, they flipped a switch, and slowly but surely began to dig into the deficit.

Trailing by as many as 17 in that first half, some key buckets from Jorden Gilmete, Emilio Elliott and Jared Larson helped the Eagles climb to within 36-26 at the halftime break. After a fairly hot start, the Ravens suddenly went completely silent – aided in large part due to an aggressive and strong Avila defense, Benedictine went more than 17 minutes of game time without a successful field goal try, enabling the Avila offense to complete a killer comeback.

Banks once again kickstarted the scoring with a three-pointer in the second half to get the Eagles within seven early. Both teams went quiet for a few minutes before Jaylin Dinkins connected from downtown and then set up DJ Pitia for a deep ball of his own to get Avila within one. Then Elliott grabbed the board off another Benedictine missed shot, and Gilmete turned it into two points on the other end, putting Avila in front 39-38 with 13:17 left, completely erasing the Eagles' early deficit.

Unfortunately for the Eagles, however, the Ravens finally figured out how to hit shots after a prolonged drought – and once the shots started to fall, they fell often. Donte' Simpson hit a shot and then set up Pitia for another three to put Avila in front 44-40 with 11 minutes to go, but the Ravens caught fire from there, connecting on threes on three straight possessions to take the lead back.

Avila kept it close, getting back to within as close as 56-52 with 4:30 left on another clutch make from Banks, but the Eagles could get no closer than that: Benedictine held on for the 66-57 victory.

Avila dominated the turnover battle and had a superior showing from the bench, but Benedictine was much better on the boards and slightly better shooting across the board. Benedictine's big three of Braden Belt, Ahmad Louis and Jayden Temme combined for 58 of their 66 points and all but two of their made threes. Banks led the Eagles with 13 points in just 18 minutes; Pitia scored 11; Elliott added three points, five rebounds and three steals.

Up next for Avila men's basketball is another road trip to a school still in the HAAC: Central Methodist, coming up on Thursday, November 10. Tipoff is slated for 7 PM; stay tuned to avilaathletics.com for details on how to watch and follow along live from Fayette, Missouri.