Naperville North stuns Geneva
Don’t look now, but here comes Naperville North.
Long an afterthought at its own tournament, the Huskies advanced to Friday’s championship game against co-host Benet with a 62-56 upset of No. 5 Geneva in Lisle, the Huskies’ sixth consecutive victory.
“Biggest win by far,” said coach Jacquie Discipio, in her fourth season leading a Naperville North program that has improved every year. “I’m a Geneva grad as well, so that made it even better. Geneva is an amazing program. We have nothing but the highest respect for them. They’ve been coming to this tournament for a while and dominating it, so they are always a team to beat.”
“There was some talking we had the easier pool (in the round-robin portion of the tournament), and we just wanted to show everyone that we can play with teams like Geneva and (No. 4) Benet,” added Huskies senior Shannon Bushman. “We have come a long way since the beginning of the season, and it was just a great win for us.”
The Huskies (8-3) took their first lead of the game at 9-8 in the first quarter, the first of 7 first-half lead changes. Gradually, however, the Huskies began to pull away. They led 27-21 with 1:39 remaining until halftime when Geneva senior Ashley Santos went to the bench with her third foul. After Bushman followed her own shot with eight seconds left, Naperville North went to halftime leading 35-24.
“We’re trying to preach to the kids that every team wants to beat them, and that’s a praise to them that they’re a good program,” Geneva coach Sarah Meadows said. “Everybody wants to beat Geneva, and I don’t think they’ve grasped that yet. We’re just showing up, and you can’t do that.”
Geneva (11-2) finally caught up at the start of the fourth quarter. Rachel Hinchman scored 5 quick points, and Santos tallied the next 4 as the Vikings cut the Naperville North lead to 1 with 6:26 to play.
Then Bushman took over.
“Obviously, I like having a nice lead, feel comfortable, but when it does come down to pressure situations, I like being the one to help my team out of it,” Bushman said. “Being a senior, it’s really nice to know that the girls are there to count on me.”
A 3-pointer from a couple of feet beyond the top of the arc was followed by two more 3s, and with 4:22 left the lead was back to 10.
“It was frustrating,” Meadows said. “We do these scouting reports, we go over their personnel and it’s just we have letdowns. ... You can’t do that. We have this run going and then we give up 9 points. It was huge. It’s disappointing.”
“Omigosh, when she made those three in a row, that separated us again,” Discipio added. “It was close, close, close, and then Shannon made those shots. That’s a purely Shannon move. Shannon’s a competitor. When the going gets tough, you want Shannon Bushman on the floor because she is going to find a way to win, and she did tonight, and that was fantastic.”
Geneva cut the lead to 3 again with 1:20 left, but the Huskies made enough free throws to earn a date at 7:30 p.m. today against Benet.
“It’s nice to have the two co-hosts in the championship for once,” Discipio said.
Hinchman finished with 22 points for Geneva, Santos added 14 points, 7 steals, 6 rebounds and 2 blocks, and Sami Pawlak had 10 points and 8 rebounds.
Freshman Kayla Sharples led Naperville North with 16 points, Bushman added 15 points and 5 rebounds. Seniors Zoe Swift and Kathleen Hahne scored 11 apiece.