Payne, St. Charles North silence Saints
With three Big Ten scholarship offers among the accolades surrounding St. Charles East’s Kendall Stephens so far this season, it was another sophomore on the other side of town who left the annual Hall of Fame night at East with bragging rights Saturday.
St. Charles North’s Quinten Payne hounded Stephens all night. After Stephens poured in 31 and 28 points in his previous two games, he scored just 5 Saturday. He only took 7 shots, the final one an airball on a corner 3-point attempt at the buzzer that would have tied the game in the North Stars’ 51-48 victory.
“We’ve played AAU ball since when we were in third grade,” Payne said of Stephens. “We were both competitors. It’s a little rivalry between us so I think tonight was a good night for North.”
Payne was quick to credit his teammates including Jason Weinzirl who kept the man-to-man pressure on Stephens going for the final four minutes of the first half when Payne had 2 fouls. On the few occasions the Saints actually freed Stephens with a screen Josh Mikes and other North Stars were quick to switch and pick up Stephens.
“I can’t take credit for defending him,” Payne said. “I stayed with him but I have to give all the credit to the other four guys who kept their guys in front of them with box outs.”
“The game plan was to stay close on me. They played it close, it got frustrating but it’s part of the game,” Stephens said.
If Payne didn’t want to credit himself his coach Tom Poulin did.
“Quentin, if you ever say that’s their best player no matter if it’s Kendall Stephens or any team on our schedule, face guard him and don’t let him touch it, he’s going to relish that and do everything he can to accept that challenge and be successful,” Poulin said. “He really worked hard.
“Five points, that won’t happen again for the next three years we play this team. He’s going to get his but as long as he’s spent at the end of the game we’ve done our job. Maybe the legs are a little weaker in the fourth quarter on the jump shot. And I think maybe that happened today. I’m proud of Quinten, he wanted that job and did a real nice job.”
The win couldn’t have come at a better time for St. Charles North (10-9, 5-2). Not only did it tie them with Elgin (12-5, 5-2) and St. Charles East (8-10, 5-2) for the Upstate Eight Conference River Division lead, it helped erase the bad taste of a 17-point loss to Batavia Thursday night.
“After Batavia we were all bummed,” junior center Kyle Nelson said. “We played our worst game of the season. Everyone played terrible especially me. Coming out here and beating our rival, it’s always good beating East but after what we just did (against Batavia), coming out here as a team, together, it really means a lot.”
Nelson shouldered a big load in the first half. St. Charles North came out in a blur racing to a 4-0 lead when Payne took a feed from Chris Conrad in transition and dunked in traffic.
But Mikes was called for a charge with 6:56 left in the first quarter and missed the final 14:56 of the first half with 2 fouls. When Payne went to the bench with his second foul midway through the second quarter, Nelson responded with 15 of the North Stars’ 23 first-half points to keep them ahead 23-21 at halftime.
“The key was us playing behind the entire game,” Saints coach Brian Clodi said. “That forced us to take some uncharacteristic bad shots. It felt like they had control.”
“I thought the team would pull through together,” Nelson said. “I was worried when Josh went out, that’s our guy, but I know as a team we could pull through.”
Dan Ditusa opened the third quarter with a layup to knot the game at 23, the final tie of the night. Payne’s putback and a 3-pointer by Weinzirl (8 points) opened a 5-point lead. Conrad found Mikes for a basket to put the North Stars ahead 39-36 going to the fourth quarter.
St. Charles North took the biggest lead of the game at 48-40 with four minutes left. The Saints had one last run in them fueled by reserve Matt Ray whose 3-pointer and 3-point play that he started with a steal got the Saints within 50-48 with 32.9 seconds to go.
Stephens just missed coming up with a steal. The Saints had to foul and sent Weinzirl to the line who split free throws for a 51-48 lead with 13 seconds left.
Luke Ludke missed a 3-pointer. The Saints got one last chance with 3 seconds remaining when the rebound was lost out of bounds off North. Clodi wanted to use Stephens as a decoy and free Johnny Hondlik but the inbounds pass went to Stephens who had to launch his shot from deep in the right corner while fading away, and the shot came up well short.
“The play wasn’t for me, and when I did get it, I was using my hands to get open and the guys were sweaty and the ball slipped,” Stephens said.
The North Stars used their height advantage to outrebound the Saints 31-16 led by Nelson’s 11. He also topped all scorers with 17 points and Payne scored 11. Mikes, who scored 29 in the first meeting between the teams, was held to 6 after the foul trouble.
“I was proud of them,” Poulin said. “I thought we showed patience. I thought we closed the game well.”
Hondlik paced the Saints with 10 points, Motley and Ditusa scored 9 and Ray 8.
“We were one possession short,” Clodi said. “I still think we’re on the upswing. It’s tough. We want to win this game more than any of them. It was a great high school game. We’re definitely not disappointed. We love our team, we love where we’re going.”