West Aurora 48, Naperville North 44

Sometimes the outcome of a basketball game simply hinges on the most basic of skills: the ability to put the ball in the basket.

West Aurora had all kinds of trouble doing that in the first half at Naperville North on Friday night. But after making just 6 of 27 shots in the opening 16 minutes, the Blackhawks converted 12 of 22 attempts from the field in the second half. That provided the impetus for a 48-44 victory in a game in which they trailed by as many as 9 points in the third quarter.

"We were rushing our shots in the first half," said West Aurora coach Gordie Kerkman. "We didn't have good patience in the first half, we didn't have good timing in the first half and that had an awful lot to do with how poorly we shot."

The main culprit as the Blackhawks (6-0, 2-0 DuPage Valley Conference) trailed 23-17 at the break was Marquis Stewart, who was 1 of 9 at that point and missed all 4 of his 3-point attempts. But he opened the third quarter with a 3-pointer, and his jumper with seven minutes left in the game culminated a 10-0 run that gave West Aurora its first lead of the night at 36-35. He capped his roller-coaster evening with a pair of free throws that put the game away with 19 seconds left.

"I was frustrated, but I wasn't gonna get down about it," said Stewart, who finished with a game-high 13 points. "Coach just said keep playing, keep playing and I made them at the end when it counted."

Of course the airtight defense of Naperville North (3-5, 1-1), which was designed to take away the penetration of Stewart and fellow guard Markus Cocroft, had a lot to do with West Aurora's shooting woes.

"Our guys executed our defensive strategy very well," said Naperville North coach Mark Lindo, "but it seemed to me we were a little more passive late in the third quarter and early in the fourth quarter, and we allowed them to get into their comfort zone too much."

With point guard Jake Hasse doing what Lindo termed "his best job all season quarterbacking the team," the Huskies kept the Blackhawks at arm's length for the first three quarters with Tom Walsh and Austin Weiss the main beneficiaries of Hasse's game-high 7 assists. When Hasse drilled a 3-pointer with three minutes left in the third quarter, Naperville North had its biggest lead at 35-26.

But it wouldn't last. While the Blackhawks started making shots, the Huskies cashed in only 8 of 17 free-throw attempts on the night.

"We flat out have to be a better free-throw shooting team," Lindo said. "That's a hurdle we still have to jump."