Confident Huskies knock off WW South
Naperville North's boys basketball team capped its best weekend of the season.
Good timing. It's also the Huskies' final weekend of games before regional play begins Feb. 25.
Playing close to flawless through most of Saturday night's DuPage Valley Conference game, visiting Naperville North held off Wheaton Warrenville South 52-44.
"Our guard play has been good, we're not turning the ball over as much, we're hitting our free throws," said Huskies senior Austin Weiss. "We're just going to carry this on into the postseason and see what happens. Everyone's walking around with a little bit more of a swagger. You could see that confidence at the free-throw line."
Naperville North (10-15, 5-8), on the heels of Friday's 53-36 win over Glenbard North, nailed its first 14 free throws against the Tigers (14-10, 6-7) including its first 10 of the fourth quarter. Weiss was a perfect 8 of 8 in the final period, which helped the Huskies stay at least 4 points ahead down the stretch.
The Huskies made only 1 field goal after Danny Grimley's 3-pointer started the fourth quarter, but it was a big one. Weiss, who scored a game-high 16 points, put back a rare missed free throw by the Huskies to boost the lead to 47-39 with 1:10 left.
In addition to its 19-of-24 free-throw shooting, Naperville North committed only 8 turnovers and used 10-of-18 first-half shooting from the field to build a lead it never relinquished.
After going winless in their three previous doubleheader weekends, the Huskies finally swept a pair of games.
"That's about as clean as we can be," said Huskies coach Mark Lindo. "I thought we passed the ball well, I thought we met the ball well. I thought in the first half we really ran our half-court offense well. We looked confident at the line, and that's what success does."
WW South didn't play poorly, either. But poor shooting throughout doomed the Tigers, who made only 30 percent of their field goals.
That one alarming statistic took away from a pretty clean night by the Tigers that featured only 4 turnovers and 9-of-9 free-throw shooting.
Sam Carlson led a balanced effort with 9 points, while Kendrick Perry and Steve Dolatowski each scored 8 points off the bench. Joe McNicholas tallied 13 points for Naperville North.
"We kept battling and plugging away," said WW South coach Mike Healy. "It wasn't like we didn't get good looks. I think they just did what they had to do to get us out of our rhythm."