Wheaton North 63, Glenbard North 49
Sometimes momentum is not enough.
Visiting Glenbard North opened the second half of Friday's DuPage Valley Conference boys basketball opener at Wheaton North with a 13-2 run to take the lead and the momentum away from the Falcons. The Panthers (0-4, 0-1) seemingly had everything on their side with a 2-point lead that forced Wheaton North coach Jim Nazos to burn a timeout.
But the Falcons came out of the timeout with a quick 3-pointer from Kristian Rosenberger, and Dave Pilalis followed with a steal that led to a pair of free throws. Glenbard North did recapture the lead, but the hosts closed out the quarter with a 5-0 run and then dominated the fourth quarter on their way to a 63-49 win.
"You spend a lot of energy getting back into the game and you're going to get fatigued," said Panthers coach Erin Dwyer, whose team trailed 33-24 at the half. "We just got a little tired. The effort was great, but the execution has got to improve. But we'll correct it."
Considering the Panthers welcomed football stars Matt Ng and Evan Watkins to the team just this week after their run to the state championship game, it took some nice efforts to hang with a Falcons team that was sinking five 3-pointers and getting strong inside play from John Bagge and Zach Dungee.
Bagge scored 7 of his 15 points in a big fourth quarter for Wheaton North (4-1, 1-0), while Dungee had 14 points, 5 rebounds and 2 steals. He played extended minutes in place of Tom Fitzpatrick, who was out with an ankle injury.
"It's a long game," Bagge said. "They threw a couple different defensive looks at us and they hit some 3s, but coach talked about a lot of things between quarters. When we do listen to the coaches we can hang with anybody."
Pilalis helped the Falcons start fast by connecting on three of his game-high four 3-pointers in the first half en route to tallying 17 points. Rosenberger and Steve Pierotti also knocked down 3s for Wheaton North, while Rosenberger added 4 steals.
The Falcons needed the many contributions as Glenbard North picked up a game-high 18 points from forward Ryan Gasiorowski, 11 points from Reid Hulett all in the third quarter, and 13 points off the bench from James Fleming.
On top of that, the 6-foot-6 Watkins didn't look very rusty. He had 5 points, 7 boards and 4 blocked shots. Not a bad effort considering he and Ng got in just one full practice before Friday's basketball game.
"We do have a lot of seniors, and it boils down to keeping your composure," Nazos said. "We did a real good job in keeping our heads when they made their run."