Naperville Central takes suspense out of game early
Naperville Central coach Andy Nussbaum had good reason to be worried about Wednesday's girls basketball regional semifinal against Neuqua Valley. After all, the Wildcats had forced the Redhawks to overtime earlier in the season.
Instead, Nussbaum's Redhawks helped him relax very early.
"This was a way different game from the past two times we played them," Redhawks senior Abigail Kincaide said.
The Redhawks gave up the opening basket, then scored the next 36 points over a span of 12 minutes to take control of the game. The host Redhawks breezed to a 62-36 victory.
"I've got to tell you, I was pretty tight for what, the last 48 hours? Because Neuqua's clearly good enough to beat us," Nussbaum said.
After giving up that opening basket to Neuqua Valley's Jada Harvey, the Redhawks ended the first quarter with a 19-2 lead. Then they scored the first 17 points of the second quarter, a run ended by Megan Callahan's 3-pointer with 2:15 left in the period.
"I don't think I've ever seen a 36-point run before," said Nussbaum, who has coached the Redhawks for 30 seasons. "At this point any win, pretty or not, is a good win and we move on."
The second-seeded Redhawks (26-5) move on to meet another DuPage Valley Conference and cross-town rival, No. 7 Naperville North, in the regional final at 7 p.m. Friday at Naperville Central.
Senior Mia Lakstigala led the Redhawks with 24 points, 5 steals, 5 assists and 3 rebounds. Freshman Gabi Melby added 10 points, 8 of them in the first quarter to get the Redhawks started.
"We thought Melby was kind of one of our keys, and hitting those two 3s I think really kind of helped us get the snowball rolling downhill," Nussbaum said.
Despite the big early lead the Redhawks remained a little on edge, wary of a letdown when the Wildcats still had time to narrow the lead.
"We definitely still had to keep our focus because I feel like a lot of times when we get up by that much we get sloppy because we know we're up by a lot," Kincaide said. "But we have to keep the momentum going. We can't let down."
Harvey led the 18th-seeded Wildcats (10-19) with 10 points.