Naperville North overwhelms Waubonsie Valley

Tall, talented and deep.

That sums up this year's Naperville North boys basketball team. On Friday night host Waubonsie Valley just couldn't keep up with the Huskies and eventually came up short in a 59-39 DuPage Valley Conference battle.

Seventeen Naperville North players saw action and 11 scored as the visitors won their sixth straight game. The Huskies improved to 12-4 overall and 6-2 in the DVC.

Six-foot-6 guard Mitch Lewis scored eight quick points as the Huskies jumped out to a 10-2 lead. Lewis tallied just four more points in limited minutes the rest of the way but still led all scorers with 12 points.

With a tough test Saturday against Class 4A No. 2-ranked Evanston at Glenbard East's When Sides Collide Shootout, Naperville North was glad to jump out strong and then hand the baton off to its deep bench.

"It's nice. We play No. 2 Evanston tomorrow, so we're going to need everything we have," Lewis said. "It was nice to not use all of our legs. Everybody came in and did something positive, so it was cool to see that."

After Lewis and 6-7 center Chris Johnson helped the Huskies lead 17-8 after one quarter and 28-17 at the half, a strong group of reserves stepped in, stepped up and helped finish off the win. Senior Youcef Merabet made the most of his opportunity, hitting a 3-pointer and converting a three-point play on his way to 9 points off the bench.

"We've got a really deep bench, so we got to always have guys ready to come in and attack every time," said Merabet, a 6-foot senior. "We've got a bunch of guys working hard every day and we've just got to be ready to play. It can be a new guy every game so every guy has got to be ready."

Huskies coach Jeff Powers could not have imagined a better result.

"It was perfect," Powers said. "We couldn't have drawn it up any better. Our guys played and they got us a good lead. We got to play everyone.

"Then you bring in a guy like Yousef and he gets on fire. He's done that a lot of times. We have so many kids who are so skilled and it's just fun to see them all get an opportunity and do so well."

For the Warriors, Blake Blanzy hit a pair of 3s in the first quarter to close the gap to 10-8. But the Huskies' pressured the hosts into 10 first-half turnovers while closing out the half with an 18-9 run. The Huskies then used a 21-point third quarter to build a 49-28 lead.

"In that game there was clearly a massive skill deficit for us. They're a lot more skilled and bigger," Waubonsie Valley coach Jason Mead said. "They're good enough to score in the halfcourt on us and right now, especially with their size and length and ball pressure, we were struggling to score in the halfcourt."

Chuck Robinson paced the Warriors with 7 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocked shots, while Eric Cannon also scored 7 points.