Naperville Central gets the message, beats Naperville North
Naperville Central coach Andy Nussbaum had seen enough.
His Redhawks, the front-runners in the DuPage Valley Conference girls basketball standings, gave up a pair of baskets early in the second quarter Thursday to host Naperville North to go down 20-11. That prompted a timeout from Nussbaum that got … well, let's just say a little animated.
"I don't know how you want to describe the timeout, (but) it was a very strong version of, how about waking up a little bit?" Nussbaum said with a laugh. "Let's just say our minds weren't in the right place."
Whatever he said - and Nussbaum confirmed he didn't use any salty language - must have resonated. Naperville Central finished the period with a 26-7 advantage, including a 13-2 spurt in the final two minutes.
That propelled the Redhawks to a 58-45 victory to improve to 23-5 overall and 13-1 in league.
"Nuss just said we needed to really pick it up," said senior guard Mia Lakstigala, who led all scorers with 22 points and kicked off the post-speech run with a 3-pointer from the right corner, then added a layup in the lane 22 seconds later. "I think we really got that in our head. We started running faster and taking better shots."
Added junior forward Lucy Schmid, who scored 21 points and grabbed 6 rebounds: "He just said that we really had to get our heads back in the game, because we weren't focusing enough. He was definitely right."
Early on, it looked like Naperville North freshman forward Greta Kampschroeder was going to steal the show. She scored 11 in the first quarter, including three 3-pointers, to stake the Huskies to a 16-11 lead at its conclusion. It was after senior forward Ella Bristow made her second layup of the second quarter that Nussbaum called time.
It wasn't as if the Redhawks were unstoppable after that brief exchange of views, but darn near. They sandwiched runs of 6-0 and 8-0 between a single free throw by Huskies freshman Piper Fenner. Then after a layup by Bristow, Schmid hit a 3 and then added a pair of free throws for good measure to put her team up 37-27 at half.
"We came out the gates and played very well, we played under control offensively, we did a great job defensively of keeping them off balance, mixing our man and zone attack," said Huskies coach Jason Dycus. "And then I thought the last four minutes of the second quarter, we let them go on a run. We did not defend very well at all, and I think we got a little bit impatient offensively."
Naperville North (14-10, 9-5) did manage to pull within 51-45 with 3:45 left in the game, behind a pair of 3-pointers from sophomore guard Nikki Kwilosz, but that was it for the Huskies - they didn't score again.
Meanwhile, the Redhawks would close the game with a 7-0 run, but what was perhaps more impressive was their in-your-face man defense that just didn't give the Huskies a legitimate open look at the basket. They held Kampschroeder scoreless in the fourth quarter, though she did finish with 14 points and 6 rebounds.
Naperville Central shot 42 percent from the field, compared to 36 percent for Naperville North, and outrebounded the Huskies 26-18.
"We didn't put four quarters together the way we have been tonight," Dycus said. "We're a dangerous team. We have to set our sights on beating those great teams, and that's a great team."