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Wheaton North battles for another road win

Wheaton North followed a victory Thursday at Batavia by winning 41-37 at St. Charles North on Saturday, the result pleasing to sophomore guard Claire Hyde not only for keeping the Falcons in the thick of the DuKane Conference race but for the locations they took place.

"Our coaches say playing on the road in the DuKane is like playing on the road in the Big Ten," Hyde said. "It's crazy, it's difficult. We're road warriors."

That the Falcons are as they improved to 14-4 overall and 6-2 in the DuKane, trailing just Lake Park and Geneva who each have one conference loss.

Hyde scored 12 of her game-high 19 points in the second half Saturday including a deep 3-pointer from the volleyball line that gave the Falcons the lead for good with four minutes left.

"I was screaming shoot it the whole way," Falcons coach David Eaton said. "She can really shoot the ball. Obviously she made some things happen for us in the second half."

St. Charles North (14-10, 4-4) defeated the Falcons in the first meeting and took a 21-20 halftime lead in a tight game throughout that neither team led by more than 5 points.

The North Stars' biggest lead came at 25-20 when Talia Pellegrini drew the fourth foul on Caroline Gaither and made a pair of free throws early in the third quarter.

The Falcons received some key contributions from their bench to offset the foul trouble including Courtney Craig who pulled down a team-high 8 rebounds.

Trailing 29-27 in the final minute of the third quarter, Julia Simon scored all 6 of her points, the final two coming on a layup after Gaither's steal and assist, to give Wheaton North a 31-29 lead going to the fourth.

Back-to-back 3-point shots by Morgan Klug and Launi Chanthaboury put the North Stars back up 35-32 with 6:46 left. But they didn't score again until 38.9 seconds remained.

Gaither's 3-pointer drew the Falcons within 35-34 before Hyde's WNBA range 3 put them ahead to stay.

"I practice long 3s a lot just in case," Hyde said. "I hear a lot of people say don't practice shots you aren't going to take in the game but you never know when you are going to take that kind of shot. I have confidence in my shot. I work on it thousands of hours."

The Falcons missed three straight front ends of 1-and-1s in the final minute to give the North Stars one last chance trailing 39-37. But an open 3-pointer from the wing rimmed off to finish a frigid 3-for-22 effort from behind the arc.

"That's a strength of our team," North Stars coach Mike Tomczak said. "It's difficult to beat good teams when you don't do what you do as well as you should. These are good shooters averaging mid-30s from the arc this season."

Gaither (16 points) and Simon (6 points, 6 rebounds, 5 steals) joined Hyde as the only players to score for the Falcons.

Emma Nawara led the North Stars with 9 points and 12 rebounds, Alyssa Hughes scored 9 points off the bench and Talia Pellegrini added 7 points and 5 rebounds.

"It really came down to they hit a couple big shots down the stretch," Tomczak said. "We had looks at it and didn't put them home."

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