Naperville North clinches share of DVC title
Naperville North took the floor at Naperville Central on Friday night bothered by a bad memory.
By the time the Huskies left the floor they had created a good memory to replace the bad.
A little less than a year ago the Redhawks defeated the Huskies in three overtime periods on the same floor in a Class 4A girls basketball regional final. This time the Huskies made sure overtime wasn't necessary, winning 63-53 and clinching a share of the DuPage Valley Conference championship.
"That was really heavy, a lot of crying," Huskies senior Celette Drummond said of the three-overtime loss. "To win this game tonight, it just feels really good to know that we beat our rivals from last year and now we're even stronger than ever too."
"It was tough," Huskies sophomore Greta Kampschroeder added. "We try to forget previous games but kind of have it in the back of your mind, like, a revenge game. Just taking out kind of that anger and emotion, because I know that was really tough for us last year. It feels really good."
The Huskies (15-9, 6-0) have a two-game lead over the Redhawks (12-17, 4-2), their closest pursuer, with two games to play. Naperville North can clinch the title outright Saturday afternoon if it wins at home against Metea Valley.
The Huskies showed better balance than usual in Friday's win. Kampschroeder still put up big numbers with 24 points, 15 rebounds and 3 steals. But six Huskies scored, with junior point guard Kara Rivard notching 12 points, all in the second half, and Drummond 10.
"Huge," Huskies coach Jason Dycus said of the balanced effort. "I think we grew up as a team tonight in that way. We really passed the ball well. We were harder to guard. We had post scorers. We had medium-range jumpers. We had some 3s. (Sarah) Lockridge stepped up, Rivard stepped up, the freshman (Sarah) Crossett stepped up. Letty, (Kaitlyn) Castillo, everyone contributed."
"Just the energy we had coming into the second half, especially into the beginning of the third quarter was just like, we have to have the mentality of focus," Rivard said, "and that's exactly what we came out and did. We focused on our defense, then that flowed into our offense."
The Redhawks were within 5 points until Drummond stepped up with a pair of baskets, putting the Huskies ahead 56-47 with 2:30 to go.
"I feel like they were pretty big. We were already up, but I feel like those just tightened the lead even more, which gave us more momentum as a team," Drummond said. "It was really exciting too."
Emily Spisak led the Redhawks with 15 points, Gabi Melby had 13 points and 6 assists, and Lauren Umbright had 9 points and 15 rebounds.
"They're so long, and it's hard to get shots that we normally get," Redhawks coach Andy Nussbaum said. "Maybe we made some shaky decisions on those. And being behind kind of played into that. We can't be that patient when we're that far behind."