Warriors hit from the free-throw line, go to 6-1 on season

In a game in which the referees' whistles seemed to be going nonstop, it was hard for either Naperville Central or visiting Waubonsie Valley to really get on track in Saturday night's nonconference boys basketball game.

To make matters even worse for the Redhawks (4-2), Warriors senior guard Justin Peaster and his teammates did a great job of defending Naperville Central's Drew Crawford, who didn't connect on his first field goal until the fourth quarter and finished with just 2 shots from the floor to go with a 10-of-11 night from the foul line to score 14 points.

Couple Waubonsie's big night on defense with 24 free throws made, and the result was a 59-47 win for the Warriors, now 6-1 on the year after a pair of wins this weekend.

"We won ugly, but a win's a win," Waubonsie Valley coach Steve Weemer said. "We're an uptempo team, a running team. We play off high energy and we weren't able to do that."

Despite being called for 25 fouls, the Warriors still were able to put a solid effort on the defensive end and take advantage of Josh Daniels outside shooting and Kevin VandenBerg's free-throw shooting to score enough points to knock off a Redhawks team that entered the week 4-0 but lost back-to-back games this weekend.

"At practice we worked on guarding and guarding hard," Peaster said. "We tried not to give him open looks and we stayed in his grill. He got a little tired and asked to come out, so I guess I did my job."

With Daniels knocking down the first of his four 3-pointers on the night, the Warriors took a quick 7-1 lead, led 9-7 after one quarter and 22-20 at the half. But a 20-point outburst in the third quarter enabled the Warriors to go on top 42-33. Daniels, who led all scorers with 19 points, sank two long-range shots in the quarter.

With VandenBerg making 8 of 10 foul shots in the fourth quarter, Waubonsie was able to hold off the Redhawks, who only had Crawford score in double figures. Harrison Daniels did score 9 points and came away with 4 steals and Matt Derwin hit on a pair of 3-pointers, but it was not enough for the hosts.

"Their quickness was a problem," Naperville Central coach Pete Kramer said, "and we did not take care of the basketball tonight. But I thought the kids fought hard and we battled. We learned a lot this weekend. But we're gonna be in a dogfight every night."

Kyle Obendorf led the Warriors with 7 rebounds and added 11 points, while Jelani Johnson scored all 9 of his points in the second half to help the visitors to victory.