Naperville Central 67, West Aurora 57

With second place in the DuPage Valley Conference on the line, Naperville Central got off to a shaky start against the West Aurora full-court press.

But the host Redhawks, thanks to outstanding performances by Kelley Hendrick and Claire Fleming, turned it around and defeated the Blackhawks 67-57.

The senior night victory leaves the Redhawks in a second-place tie with Wheaton North at the conclusion of the DVC girls basketball schedule.

Hendrick finished the game with a season-high 27 points and added 5 steals, while Fleming scored 16 and pulled down 9 rebounds.

"At the beginning I was trying to go too fast," Hendrick said. "We were making stupid mistakes because we were just thinking about running. We weren't thinking through, basketball-wise."

While the Redhawks (21-9, 11-3) settled down in the second quarter, they were still trailing 36-29 at halftime with Kyra Watson, who scored 9 points, and Devin Vaughn, who scored 14, doing most of the damage for West Aurora.

In the second quarter the Redhawks switched to a man-to-man defense in order to keep the ball out of Watson's hands and to limit Vaughn's effectiveness.

That strategy earned its dividends in the second half as the Redhawks held West Aurora (18-8, 9-4) to 6 points in the third quarter, kept Watson from scoring the rest of the way and Vaughn scored just 3 more points for a team high of 17.

"We were able to overplay their big scorers on defense because we had Lisa Lawrence back there as an insurance policy, and she stepped up." said Naperville Central coach Andy Nussbaum about his 6-foot-3 center.

That third period was pivotal as Lawrence and Fleming controlled the boards and Hendrick found the right speed, scoring 7 of the Redhawks first 9 points of the period.

Fleming's layup on a pass from Emma Ondik tied the game at 40 with 2½ minutes to go in the period.

Ondik, who scored 10, hit a 3-pointer to give Naperville Central the lead for good 43-40 near the end of the period.

At the beginning of the final quarter, Fleming's rebounds resulted in a pair of transition baskets for Hendrick, and after Jessica Carter hit 1 of 2 from the free-throw line, Fleming sank a 3-pointer to put the Redhawks in charge 51-44.

After that it was West Aurora pressing and fouling to try to get the ball back, but the Redhawks were 14 of 15 from the line down the stretch to ice the game.

"We just lost to them in their house," Watson said. "We knew we had to come back and show them what we're made of. The press got us a little flustered, but we got over it."

West Aurora coach Connie Siljendahl thought her team's lack of depth was an important factor in the game.

"We had to come out of the press in order to save our girls' legs a little," Siljendahl said. "We just ran out of gas. We weren't hot, we weren't moving and we weren't looking for each other. We kind of stopped playing. But Naperville Central is a good team. Lawrence is tough inside and Hendrick is a good player."

Briannica Tye scored 13 for the Blackhawks and Kiara Towles added 12. Watson and Towles grabbed 7 rebounds apiece.