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St. Charles North grinds out win at DeKalb

On a night when the 3-pointers weren't falling for St. Charles North against a stingy DeKalb defense, Max Love came off the bench and sparked enough of a run for the North Stars.

Love helped St. Charles North rattle off 10 straight between the third and fourth quarters in a 47-40 win over the Barbs on Wednesday.

"I haven't had anyone work on a shot more than what Max did in the offseason," St. Charles North coach Tom Poulin said. "You can't leave him open. If you do, he's probably going to knock it down. I was happy to see that because at Thanksgiving he wasn't as consistent as he wants to be. But tonight he was able to knock down open 3s."

DeKalb (2-3) led most of the way and went ahead 33-30 on a 3-pointer by Joe Owens with 2:26 left in the third - with the 3 coming minutes after Owens slammed down an emphatic dunk after stealing the ball. But Love started the run with a 3, and Nicholas DeMarco ended it with a long-range shot with 7:15 left in the game, putting the North Stars (4-1) ahead 40-33.

After Trenton Kyler made a 3-pointer with 5:43 left to bring the deficit to four for the Barbs, Love hit his third and final 3-pointer of the game, and DeKalb never got any closer than five the rest of the way. Its offense struggled throughout the game, shooting 31.9% for the game.

"Offensively, we weren't aggressive enough to get to the line, and we weren't aggressive enough to run our stuff and compete with a high-level team - on the offensive end," first-year DeKalb coach Mike Reynolds said. "But on the defensive end, I thought we were really good. To hold a team to 47 points ­- you have to score more than 40. You can't roll around 40 points in a high school game. When we're really good, we're in the 50s and 60s; that's got to be our goal."

Only five players scored for the North Stars, and only three had more than three points - Love scored nine, point guard Luke Scheffers led all scorers with 19, and Connor Linke scored 13 and added 10 rebounds.

The job of defending Linke, a 6-foot-9 Bradley commit, fell to the 6-foot-4 Cameron Grays and the 6-foot-5 Owens.

"I thought Grays and Joe did a nice job inside on him," Reynolds said. "He's going to Bradley. He's a Division-I, full scholarship guy. And they've got good shooters around him and a good point guard. I thought we defended really, really well. I thought a couple plays we could have defended better a little better, but for the most part, we defended as well as we could."

The game became streaky in the first half. After the Barbs built a 16-11 lead, the North Stars scored 11 straight to take the lead. But immediately after that run ended, the Barbs started a 12-0 run of their own to lead, 28-22, early in the third.

St. Charles North scored 18 of the next 23 points to take command of the game.

"I thought it was two good basketball teams. It was a dogfight," Poulin said. "Both teams played well defensively. That's a well-coached team. They're not going to beat themselves. I feel like we could play a lot smarter. But we definitely played hard. I thought we dug in after the first quarter and defended well."

By the numbers: Trenton Kyler led the Barbs with 15, and Owens added 11 points and 11 rebounds. DeKalb was 3 for 4 from the free-throw line in the game. St. Charles North was 5 of 19 on 3-pointers, with Love going 3 of 4.

Beyond the stats: During the Barbs' 12-0 run, DeKalb was sparked by an early block by Grays, who fed the ball ahead to Zach Russell for an easy layup on the fast break.

They said it: "We can shoot it," Poulin said. "And that was big, it got us a little bit of separation, and it was just enough. But we can shoot it much better than we shot it tonight. We can do more with time, score, situation, but we did enough to get the win against a tough team on the road. So I'll take it and get out of here."

Up next: The Barbs open play in the DuPage Valley Conference on Friday at Neuqua Valley, while the North Stars are at Wheaton North on Friday.

St. Charles North senior Luke Scheffers drives around DeKalb senior Avery Medina basket during their game Wednesday at DeKalb High School. Mark Busch/Shaw Media
DeKalb seniors Christian Grays (left) and Joseph Owens battle for a rebound with St. Charles North senior Connor Linke during their game Wednesday at DeKalb High School. Mark Busch/Shaw Media
St. Charles North senior Luke Scheffers calls a play during their game against DeKalb Wednesday at DeKalb High School. Mark Busch/Shaw Media
St. Charles North senior Luke Scheffers goes to the basket during their game at DeKalb Wednesday. Mark Busch/Shaw Media
St. Charles North senior Connor Linke (left) and sophomore Ethan Marlowe converge on DeKalb senior Daniel Brown during their game Wednesday at DeKalb High School. Mark Busch/Shaw Media
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