Naperville Central finishes with a victory
Going into Thursday's regular-season finale between the Naperville Central girls basketball team and host Wheaton Warrenville South, one might think this game might be hurting on the excitement level with the Redhawks already having won the DuPage Valley Conference and the posteseason seeds decided long ago.
It didn't work out that way. The Redhawks' 53-51 win over the Tigers was the story of two teams that struggled early on in the season but who have since found their groove and who each wanted this game badly to grow their momentum further.
"This was a big game. We wanted to give ourselves .500 or better," said Naperville Central coach Andy Nussbaum, whose team improved to 15-14 overall and finished 8-2 in the DVC. "(The Tigers are) playing much better than they were in December and so are we. Earlier, we lost eight out of 10. Now we've won eight out of 10.
The Redhawks were flat shooting from the field during the first half, going 5 of 23 while the Tigers hit 7 of 16 during the second quarter which helped them lead at halftime, 26-18.
But controlling the tempo of the game is crucial for Naperville Central, and it got that under control during the third quarter and outscored WW South (13-16, 5-5) 22-10 duing the eight minutes.
"They tried to slow us down. At halftime we readjusted and then speeded things up and played our game," said Redhawks senior Haley Minick, who finished with 7 points and a game-high 10 rebounds.
Two free throws by Emily Kraft, who scored 15 points including 9 of 9 from the free-throw line, put Naperville Central up 46-38 with 4:54 left in the game. A 3-point basket by Erin Madigan pulled the Tigers to within 46-43. Cierra Stanciel, who led the Redhawks with 17 points, was left all alone for a layup and got her team back up to 50-43. Stanciel's efforts were crucial to her team's big showing in the third quarter as she nailed down 9 points. Again, pace was crucial to her game.
"I had more speed than her (the player guarding her) and used it to my advantage," she said.
Olivia Linebarger, who finished with a game-high 22 points, converted a steal into a layup to pull the Tigers to within 50-45 and WW South called a timeout with 33 seconds left.
Eight seconds later, Madigan made a free throw and soon after and Linebarger added a a bucket on the fast-break to cut the Naperville Central advantage to 50-48.
"That (her play Thursday) has been normal for the past four years. She was part of four fantastic teams and each year she took more of the load," said Tigers coach Rob Kroehnke.
The Redhawks then made three of their next four free throws to make it 53-48 with Linebarger getting the game's last basket, a 3, with just a couple of seconds remaining. Naperville Central, an eighth seed in the Class 4A Oswego East sectional, opens postseason play against ninth-seeded Naperville North on Tuesday in a Joliet West regional semifinal at 7:30 p.m. The teams split the regular-season series between them.
Meanwhile, WW South, a 10th seed in the Geneva sectional, opens regional competition Wednesday at Lake Park against seventh-seeded Schaumburg which beat the Tigers earlier in the season. The semifinal contest starts at 7 p.m.
"We're definitely not playing as 10th seed. We're a different team than we were in November and December," Kroehnke said. "We were winning in the first half tonight because we were playing defense. If we play defense like we can, anything can happen. We're looking forward to the postseason."