Naperville Central finally gets shots to drop against Lockport

There was no fire and brimstone halftime speech. There was no weeping and gnashing of teeth. No finger-pointing.

There was just casual but candid conversation.

"I'd love to tell you it was some golden-throat speech, but it was a very soft version of, 'I think we're getting shots, we just got to make them,'" Naperville Central coach Andy Nussbaum said.

"It wasn't anything brilliant," he added. "I'd like to tell you we chewed them out. We didn't do that, either. We just got to make shots. That was pretty much it."

Whatever happened during the 10 minutes between the end of the first half and the start of the third quarter, Naperville Central was a different team after the break. Trailing Lockport 20-16, the Redhawks scored the first 12 points of the second half and never looked back.

Naperville Central (27-5) defeated Lockport 58-43 to advance to Class 4A Neuqua Valley sectional championship game against No. 1 seed Bolingbrook at 7 p.m. Thursday.

Naperville Central 5-foot-11 guard Mia Lakstigala - who led all scorers with 26 points, including 17 in the second half - said that the words that were spoken at halftime were more comforting than having anything to do with X's and O's.

"Nuss and two other players on the bench just told us not to put our heads down," Lakstigala said. "I think we did a really good job of that coming out really hard and fast in the second half."

Lakstigala scored 8 points in the first quarter but only 1 in the second as Naperville Central fell behind by as many as 7 points. She followed a basket by teammate Abigail Kincaide to open the second half with back-to-back, coast-to-coast buckets to prompt a Lockport timeout.

"We knew we had to try to stop No. 31 (Lakstigala)," Lockport coach Dan Kelly said. "She's a great player, a great scorer. She got loose there in the third quarter and before we knew it the momentum swung completely around."

Lockport (15-14) employed another timeout after Gabi Melby and Lucy Schmid buried back-to-back 3-pointers to extend Naperville Central's lead to 28-20 a little less than three minutes into the third quarter.

By the time the Redhawks' run began to wind down at the end of the third quarter, they had outscored Lockport 28-8 over the first seven-plus minutes of the second half to establish a 44-28 lead.

"I think for whatever reason we played with a lot more energy the first two minutes of the second half and never stopped," Nussbaum said. "I can guarantee you it was all them. It wasn't anything I said. At least I don't think it was."

Schmid scored 10 of her 16 points in the second half, including a pair of 3-pointers. Melby added 8 points. Taylor Hopkins led Lockport with 12 points.

"I don't know what it was, but I'm glad it was there," Nussbaum said. "We live to play another day."