Weary Warhawks contain Carmel

Even a North Chicago team with tired legs is a tough team to beat.

The Warhawks endured a stiff test Friday night against Lakes and were dragging on Saturday.

Or so they say.

A lot of teams would take "dragging" if it were the way North Chicago does it.

The weary Warhawks were nearly 30 points off their scoring average, but still soundly whipped host Carmel 66-43 in nonconference action.

North Chicago, which improves to 16-2, entered the game averaging an astounding 95 points per game in North Suburban Prairie Division action.

"We practice the run and gun offense all summer. We really work on it and it's paying off," North Chicago coach Gerald Coleman said. "We work a lot on our pressure defense, too. We create our offense off our defense."

And against Carmel, North Chicago's defense was absolutely suffocating at times.

In the first half alone, the Warhawks pressed and pressured Carmel into 18 turnovers. The Corsairs wound up with 25 turnovers on the game.

Many of those Carmel turnovers led to easy North Chicago layups.

"That was tough. We had a rough first half. It just seemed like we were throwing the ball everywhere," said Carmel guard Jordan Sivertsen, who scored a team-high 13 points. He was the only Carmel player to reach double-figures. "They put such good pressure on you and they're smart. They're a really good team."

By halftime, North Chicago had built up a 32-15 lead. And the bleeding for Carmel continued immediately once the second half began.

The Warhawks ran off the first 8 points of the third quarter. The 25-point lead (40-15) tied North Chicago's biggest lead of the night.

Carmel (3-17) managed to cut its deficit to 12 points early in the fourth quarter, but the Warhawks quickly nipped any hope for a comeback by reeling off 12 straight points.

"I thought that the thing that was positive for us was that Friday night (against Marian Catholic) we came out pretty flat," Carmel coach Jon Baffico said. "I thought we did a nice job of battling back. We had a couple of opportunities when (the deficit) was 12 to get it to single digits. But (North Chicago) is a talented group and they dictated the tempo by creating more turnovers.

"They've handled some teams pretty well this year."

North Chicago had four players reach double-figures, headed up by Keith Ford. He scored a game-high 17 points.

Teammate Patrick Terrell finished with 15 points and Kentrall Wilson and Dentri Henning each added 10 points.

"It wasn't what we're used to. This is a low-scoring game for us," Ford said. "But we just wanted to get another win. We wanted another win for our record.

"It's fun scoring all those points, though. We just have to keep working hard so that we can keep scoring like that. We have a deep bench, everyone can run and everyone is able to produce."