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St. Charles East pulls away from North Stars

St. Charles East's Luke Matheny looked forward to playing in his first varsity basketball cross-town clash against St. Charles North Friday night.

"I've been wanting to do that for years," said Matheny, who scored 8 of his 16 points during a 16-6 third-quarter surge that helped push the Saints (6-5, 2-2) to a 49-45 DuKane Conference victory before a raucous crowd at St. Charles North.

"I've been coming to these games since middle school and seeing the names like Cole Gentry and Justin Hardy," said Matheny, who added 7 rebounds as the Saints won their second straight game. "I was waiting for my time."

Leading 22-16 at the half, the Saints kicked into another gear.

St. Charles East went on a 9-0 run during the last 2-plus minutes of the third quarter while opening a 38-22 advantage.

Matheny accounted for the first 6 points of the tear by knocking down a tough step-back jumper before converting off an inbounds pass from Mark Musial.

Fouled on the play, Matheny missed the free throw but darted in to secure the offensive rebound and inside bucket to make it 35-22.

"I tried to take my man off the dribble," said Matheny. "We have a lot of good shooters on our team so I knew if I penetrated (the lane), I'd either get a good shot or kick it out to one of our shooters."

"I thought we ran some good sets and executed (in the third quarter)," said Saints coach Patrick Woods.

Senior guard Nate Ortiz, who tallied a team-high 19 points, drained a 30-foot, 3-pointer at the buzzer to extend the Saints' lead to 16 after 3 quarters.

"I warned our kids after the third quarter," said Woods. "Any time you're playing the North Stars at North with Tom Poulin as coach, it's a battle. We've had some really good teams up that (16 points) and come home with a loss."

The North Stars (4-6, 0-3) scored the first 8 points of the fourth quarter - on a pair of 3-pointers from Luke Scheffers (8 points) and Tyler Czerniak (7 points) and a steal and layup by Czerniak - to pull within 38-30 with 6:03 left.

After the Saints took a 44-35 lead with 1:08 remaining, the North Stars' Colin Nelson (10 points) converted a 4-point play and Lucas Heflen (7 points) split a pair of free throws to make it 44-40 with 52 seconds left.

That was as close as the North Stars would get.

"I think St. Charles East was a better team tonight but I feel our issue is the same as it has been - we're our own worst enemy with our poor execution," said Poulin.

Connor Linke had 9 points, 14 rebounds and 4 blocked shots for North while the Saints' Cody Mitchell added 8 points and 10 rebounds.

"I'm very happy getting out with the win because it wasn't pretty there at the end," said Woods, whose team committed 8 4th-quarter turnovers. "We have to get better at game management."

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