Naperville Central's new focus beats Naperville North
The message to Hannah Swarm and her Naperville Central teammates was pretty clear prior to Thursday's cross-town battle: start fast.
Naperville Central had been slowed by sluggish starts in its last two games, but that was certainly not the case against Naperville North. Swarm connected on four 3-pointers in the first quarter and Mia Lakstigala added 9 first-quarter points. The Redhawks tallied 23 points in the first quarter on its way to 40 points after two quarters and a 66-55 defeat of the Huskies.
Swarm opened the game's scoring with a long-range basket and then tallied her team's final 9 points as the opening quarter ended with Naperville Central on top 23-18. She added two more 3s in the second quarter and scored 18 of her game-high 19 points in the first half.
"We just didn't have a strong start, so we focused on our start today," said Swarm, talking about Saturday's league setback to Lake Park. "It was definitely an awesome start and I couldn't ask for a better win against our cross-town rival."
Even Redhawks coach Andy Nussbaum, who notched his 1,200th high school win on Thursday - 616 in softball and 584 in basketball - was surprised by just how strong his team started.
"We talked about how we didn't start very well against Wheaton North last Thursday and we didn't start very well against Lake Park on Saturday," said Nussbaum, whose team is 14-7 overall and 5-2 and in third place in the DVC.
"So we wanted to start well, but I wasn't anticipating that kind of start. I thought we moved the ball around and shot the ball well, particularly Hannah."
Swarm added just one free throw in the second half, but it didn't matter as teammate Kaylee Cunningham added a pair of 3s off the bench, Lakstigala finished the game with 18 points, and eight Redhawks tallied at least 3 points in the win. On top of that, Naperville Central mixed up its defenses and limited the Huskies to 19 points over the middle quarters after allowing 18 in the opening quarter.
"It was real intense in the first quarter so we had to kind of settle down and find our groove on defense," Swarm said. "It's definitely awesome when one of us can get hot, then they leave someone (else) open and they get hot. It starts the whole rhythm for the team."
For the Huskies, Lauren Platou and Laurel Pereira each scored 5 points in the wide-open first quarter, but they couldn't keep up the pace. Morgan Lockridge led Naperville North (8-7, 2-5) with 13 points off the bench, and sophomore center Jadie Jurkovic had 10 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocked shots.
Huskies coach Jason Dycus tipped his hat to Swarm and the Redhawks offense but added that his team could have made things a little more difficult on the home team.
"I think our defense to start the year was really strong. That's why we reached two championship-level games, at Thanksgiving and Christmas," he said. "But our defense has kind of gone away a little bit. We've got to get that toughness back. We let Swarm have a couple open 3s and Lakstigala hurt us too. They do a great job of spreading out so you've got to give Central credit. But we can't give people open looks."