Short-handed Eagles fall to Gilmour Academy, 53-25

Avon girls basketball coach Adam Castrilla isn’t one who seeks excuses. But sometimes it’s forgivable. After suffering a rash of injuries in the preseason, the Eagles are now battling their way through a flu virus. Monday night in a home game against Gilmour Academy, Avon struggled to keep up with the Lancers and dropped their third consecutive game by the score of 53-25. The Eagles are now 3-5 and next play at Lorain on Saturday. “The elephant in the room I that I think about 60 percent of our program has the flu,” Castrilla said. “I’m not saying that that’s the reason why we lost, but we certainly have been hit pretty hard over this last week and a half. On Friday we played Berea-Midpark, and half of them missed. And then the group that was healthy are now missing. It was one of those things where it was up until the last minute if we would be able to play today.” Forced to use a hybrid lineup, the Eagles held things together for much of the first quarter, but eventually the play of Gilmour freshman Annie Sullivan took over the proceedings. Standing 6-foot-2 and able to score all from over the floor with both hands, Sullivan led all players with 24 points, hitting 10 of 15 shots, including 2 of 4 3-pointers. She added four rebounds, three blocks and three steals and was a major force on defense when the Lancers employed a 1-3-1 trap with her on the point. “She’s already got Division I offers for a reason,” Castrilla said. “She’s a talented kid, and that makes a huge difference, especially in women’s basketball when you get someone like that who’s hard to stop. It certainly felt like she made a heck of a lot more than she missed. It seemed like every time I turned around, it went in. She’s a good player and they’re a good team. I know their record certainly was not indicative of the type of team that they are.” Gilmour entered the game with a 1-4 mark, but the losses came to Trinity, Lutheran East, Padua and Painesville Riverside, teams with a combined record of 22-6. Chloe Collins, who led the Eagles with nine points, hit a 3-pointer with 37 seconds remaining in the first period to cut Gilmour’s lead to 9-7, but the Lancers scored four points in the final 16 seconds to take a 13-7 lead. Gilmour then switched from a 1-2-2 zone to the 1-3-1 in the second quarter, and the Eagles struggled mightily, turning the ball over six times while being outscored, 16-5. By halftime the score was 29-12, and Avon never got closer for the remainder of the game. “It’s been hard,” said Castrilla. “This group has been through a lot of adversity. I give these kids a lot of credit, just to keep showing up and keep putting their best foot forward. Eventually, this will pay off for us. I’ve told them, ‘Let’s get healthy, let’s flush it. Honestly, I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. Thankfully, we’ve got Christmas, so go enjoy your family. There are bigger things than hoops. We’ll be okay. The reality is that we’ll get healthy and we’ll get back to playing the way I know we can play.” The Eagles are 2-3 in Southwestern Conference play, and the losses are to the three top teams in the loop. Castrilla said one of the team’s goals after getting healthy is to focus on the remaining SWC games. “That’s the beauty of conference basketball,” he said. “You want to win every game, but with your conference schedule, you get to play everyone a second time, and you have the opportunity to kind of use that as a measuring stick. We’re still giving some of these kids their first extended time on varsity and we’re going through some things. But adversity is good, and it’s okay.”