Naperville Central 45, Wheaton North 32
The Naperville Central girls basketball team just made sure the DuPage Valley Conference race will go down to the wire.
The rejuvenated Redhawks continued to keep their slim title hopes alive by knocking off DVC leader Wheaton North 45-32 Thursday night in Wheaton.
Wheaton North (16-7, 10-2) dropped into a tie for first place with Wheaton Warrenville South. West Aurora sits in third with a 9-3 conference mark with Naperville Central (18-9, 8-3) in fourth.
Naperville Central junior guard Kelley Hendrick scored a game-high 14 points, including 9 in the fourth quarter, and registered 5 assists.
"I can't even explain how great this is for our team," said Hendrick, who made 10 of 11 free throws. "We came out here with nothing to lose. They have the conference on their back and we're here just trying to finish strong."
Katie Atwood drained two 3-pointers late in the second quarter to stake Naperville Central to a 21-18 halftime edge.
Hendrick started the scoring in the second half by making 3 free throws after being fouled on a 3-point attempt to put the visitors up 24-18.
Wheaton North never got into a flow in the bump-and-grind game, and its shooting suffered for it. In the second half the Falcons missed their first 8 field-goal attempts and 15 of their first 16 while committing 4 turnovers in the dry spell.
"The last couple of days we haven't been practicing well and it showed today," Wheaton North coach David Eaton said. "Tonight was just a bad night. We're glad we got it all out of our system because I don't think there can be much more left in there."
The Redhawks rode an 11-3 run to a 35-26 lead in the fourth quarter, then sealed the victory by scoring the final 7 points.
Wheaton North did not record a putback all night thanks to Naperville Central 6-foot-3 senior center Lisa Lawrence, who corralled 14 rebounds and blocked 2 shots while chipping in 5 points.
"Lisa played great," Redhawks coach Andy Nussbaum said. "She's a pretty intimidating presence in there."
Late in the game Lawrence finally scored on a succession of three putback attempts after her initial miss, giving the visitors a 40-32 lead with 48 seconds remaining.
"I was just trying to tally up my rebounds," Lawrence joked. "We were very persistent. We wanted to win."
Allie Cerone's 10 points led the Falcons, who travel to WW South on Tuesday.
"I don't think they're nervous by any means," Eaton said of his players. "If anything, I think this sort of gave them a wakeup call. We talked in the locker room and they looked pretty determined. They know they can still win conference and they can still achieve their goals, so we're going to see what happens on Tuesday night."