Another Geneva victory

Someone forgot to tell Geneva that when your football team marches all the way to the state finals, the basketball team needs to wait a few weeks before it really gets things going.

The Vikings completed a 4-0 run through the Oswego/Naperville North Hoops for Healing tourney with a 43-40 victory over Naperville North (3-1) in Friday night's title game in Oswego. Jeremy D'Amico made 7 of 8 foul shots in the fourth quarter as Geneva held off the Huskies even though as many as nine basketball players have yet to join the program while helping guide the Vikings into Saturday's Class 7A state football championship game.

"We have seven to nine guys missing," first-year Geneva coach Phil Ralston said. "Realistically two to three starters and probably five of our top nine are missing. But I give these kids tremendous credit. They didn't make excuses. They just went out to win."

Naperville North opened the third quarter with back-to-back 3s from Arnas Gintautas and Danny Grimley to take its biggest lead of the night at 25-18. But despite just five varsity players and a handful of sophomores to fill out the roster, Geneva did not fold.

D'Amico, who scored 16 of his team-high 20 points after the intermission, followed up Grimley's 3-pointer with one of his own with 5:07 left in the third quarter. Christian Frederking then followed with a conventional 3-point play and it was a 25-24 game.

"When we get all of our players back, this shows how much stronger we can be," said D'Amico, who had a key steal late in the contest and also outscored Naperville North 11-9 by himself in the final quarter. "It's great to start off our season like this."

For the Huskies, Grimley continued his strong opening week by sinking five 3-pointers and finishing with a game-high 21 points. North was done in, however, after the Vikings outscored it 13-0 from the foul line. North missed its only free throw attempt of the night in the second quarter, while Geneva went 13-for-16 from the line.

"They did what they had been doing the entire tournament," Naperville North coach Mark Lindo said of the Vikings. "They played extremely well fundamentally, especially on offense. They were very, very patient and they were running some stuff like it was mid-season."

Despite the tough setback, Grimley likes the way things have gone so far for the Huskies. "We kind of fell apart a little at the end, but to start 3-1 is not too bad and I thought our energy out there was great," said Grimley, who finished 5-for-10 shooting from beyond the arc on Friday.

Matt Hasse and James O'Shaughnessy each had 6 rebounds for the Huskies, while Frederking finished with 7 points and 6 boards for the Vikings.