Naperville Central 55, Naperville North 38

There was nothing fancy about it, nothing that really stood out. Just a 55-38 girls basketball victory for Naperville Central over rival Naperville North to get back into the swing of things after the holidays.

"It wasn't an outstanding performance," Redhawks coach Andy Nussbaum said. "It was pretty solid. The first four minutes of both halves I thought were excellent."

The Redhawks (13-5, 4-1 DuPage Valley Conference) scored the first 14 points of the game before Kaelyn Witkowski's 3-pointer at the 3:15 mark started the Huskies (2-14, 1-4) on a 7-0 run of their own.

The Redhawks then opened the second half with a 9-0 run to take a 34-16 lead.

"The tournament games are strange, but a conference game over Christmas break is a little bit of a different thing for everybody," Nussbaum said. "I thought our players handled it well.

"I thought Claire (Fleming) had a good game. I thought Jess Carter had one of her better games of the year, even with her limited minutes."

Fleming led the Redhawks with 16 points, and Carter added 12.

"I was moving better," Carter said. "I just knew what I had to do to play hard, and that's what I did."

Kelley Hendrick scored 8 points for Naperville Central, but her most important contributions go beyond scoring. She had 6 steals, 6 assists and blocked 1 shot.

"I thought she did a real nice job defensively, and we did a better job of breaking the press tonight than maybe we have in a couple other games," Nussbaum said. "Kelley was part of that too."

Witkowski was a big part of the Huskies' game, leading all scorers with 20 points. But coach Jay Wachtel noticed other facets of her game too.

"She's been outstanding for us in almost every regard," he said. "Scoring points has been her strong suit -- 8 for 8 at the line, just outstanding. We kind of need that second person to come along with her and score those points. I thought that was what we were lacking the most tonight.

"Defensively, we did a lot of what we wanted to try to do, and Kaelyn's been a huge part of that defensively. Offensively, the points were good, and 20 is great, but the whole thing, she's really becoming our leader, even as a junior."