Redhawks win 20th again

Naperville Central's girls basketball program might not be as spectacular as it once was, but the Redhawks haven't changed their winning ways.

Naperville Central clinched its 10th consecutive 20-win season Tuesday night, defeating visiting Naperville North 53-41.

This team didn't get to 20 by winning big so much as by plugging away, game after game, and Tuesday was no different.

"It's probably good for us to struggle a little bit," Redhawks coach Andy Nussbaum said. "We didn't have a great shooting night."

The Huskies had even more problems shooting, however, making just 25 percent of their shots to the Redhawks' 43 percent. That made all the difference.

"You've got to shoot better than that, right?" asked Huskies coach Jay Wachtel. "And a lot of those were layups, fastbreak situations where we didn't convert. Kind of been our Achilles' heel, our shooting percentage."

The Redhawks also had something to do with the Huskies' shooting woes.

"We've been playing pretty solidly defensively," Nussbaum said. "… We kind of analyzed some of our losses … and those are the games where we were giving up 60 or more points."

The Redhawks' Achilles' heel was turnovers. They had 26.

"We probably didn't handle their pressure quite as well as I'd have liked," Nussbaum said.

The Redhawks (20-9, 10-3) find themselves in a three-way tie for second place in the DuPage Valley Conference, with West Aurora and Wheaton North, pending Thursday's game against West Aurora to close the league season.

The Huskies (5-21, 4-9) play Glenbard East on Thursday with fifth place on the line, and that's a motivating factor for a team trying make steady improvements.

"We're playing to keep fifth place all alone Thursday night," Wachtel said.

Claire Fleming scored 13 points off the bench to lead the Redhawks, who started an all-senior lineup Tuesday against their rivals, rather than Thursday against a tough West Aurora team.

"That was really their call," Nussbaum said of his seniors. "Still, Thursday will be a special night for them."

The Huskies got 11 points each from Kaelyn Witkowski and Erin Gibson. Erica Schertz added 12 rebounds.

"I think she's double-digit rebounds in January and this part of February," Wachtel said about Schertz. "She has just been Herculean on the boards for us."