Naperville Central paints a victory

Naperville Central took its game inside the paint against Glenbard North on Thursday.

The Redhawks' offense didn't have a field goal along the perimeter until a 3-pointer by Emily Kraft in the fourth quarter. Seniors Haley Minick and Casey Smith dominated in the lane for much of the night, leading to a 48-33 victory over the visiting Panthers in the DuPage Valley Conference opener for both teams.

Smith and Minick combined for 26 of the team's 48 points as every one of their made field goals came close to the basket.

"We usually are a pretty good perimeter team," Naperville Central coach Andy Nussbaum said. "But we've got a team I think can be aggressive along the basket. It was good to see that we were able to make something out of it and attack the basket."

Minick scored 10 of her 12 points in the first half, all inside the paint, giving the Redhawks a 14-6 lead early in the second quarter.

"We worked on a lot of plays down low in practice this week," Minick said. "I guess it worked out for us."

Smith gave Naperville Central its biggest lead of the first half at 23-10 off a layup, assisted by Jada Haynes, but the Panthers cut the deficit to 9 heading into halftime as Lisa Lubben connected on a 3-pointer and Zakiya Newsome split a pair of free throws to make the score 23-14.

Glenbard North (4-4, 0-1) eventually trimmed the deficit all the way down to 3 after Jennifer Deegan knocked down her second 3-pointer of the night with 4:54 left in the game that cut the Redhawks lead to 34-31.

But Smith came back down the floor, took a pass from Cierra Stanciel and scored again inside the paint to put Naperville Central (3-3, 1-0) up 36-31.

"That was a big basket by Casey (Smith)," Nussbaum said. "We called timeout after that and I told the team to be patient. It was one of those timeouts where you tell your team that you're ahead and that it's time to close this up."

Kraft's 3-pointer followed Smith's lay-in, and then Stanciel connected with her own shot from beyond the arc to give the Redhawks a 42-31 lead with 3:30 left.

"I'm coming in saying how (Naperville Central) was going to shoot some 3s," Glenbard North coach John Chamberlain said. "We got ourselves concerned with that and maybe not as concerned about their inside play. I thought we did a nice job in the third quarter of clamping down on that a little bit better, but the backbreaker was definitely how many easy buckets (Naperville Central) got."