Hendrick scores 1,000th point in win

The pressure was on Naperville Central's girls basketball team, so the Redhawks turned up the pressure.

Naperville Central, which has lost five of its last six games, played an aggressive full-court trapping defense to force numerous turnovers and defeated visiting West Chicago 65-44 in a DuPage Valley Conference matchup on Thursday.

Liz Crissy came off the bench to lead the Redhawks with 17 points, including five 3-pointers, and senior guard Kelley Hendrick became the eighth Redhawk and only the third in the past 21 years to hit the 1,000 points plateau.

"It was an amazing feeling to reach that goal," Hendrick said, "but a much better feeling to get the win tonight. This game showed that we can come out strong and set the tempo for the whole game. It shows our potential and I think we can do even better than we did tonight."

"We haven't had the intensity the past few games that we had tonight," Crissy said. "I hope this is a turning point."

"We haven't played well this year unless we play defense for the entire 84 feet," said Naperville Central coach Andy Nussbaum. "And we did that tonight for the entire game. We wanted to make it a full-court game, and I thought we performed really well."

West Chicago (4-5, 1-1) couldn't get into its offense in the first quarter as the Redhawks forced 10 turnovers in building an 18-10 lead.

Hendrick, who needed 6 points to reach the 1,000-point mark, did it with a foul shot with 1:11 remaining in the opening quarter.

"I've been here 21 years and we've had some good teams," Nussbaum said, "and Kelley being only the third person I've had to score 1,000 points says a lot about her, because she's also a great defensive player and our primary ballhandler."

The other two recent Redhawks who have passed 1,000 are Erica Carter (2006) with 1,664 points and, of course, Candace Parker (2004) with 2,763.

Nussbaum was particularly pleased with Crissy's offensive contribution against West Chicago.

"It was nice to see Liz have a strong game," Nussbaum said. "It shows that on a given night any one of a number of people can step up for us."

The Redhawks played without injured forward Claire Fleming, who's expected back for the Dundee-Crown tournament in two weeks.

Naperville Central built on the fast start to take 31-20 halftime lead and increased its lead every quarter. The Redhawks put the game away in the third quarter when that margin increased to 49-30.

"I was pleased that we kept the deficit to about 10 points until they took it to us in the third quarter," said West Chicago coach Kim Wallner. "We just didn't show too much poise and composure with the basketball. We said before the season that we'll go as far as our guards can take us, and they're young."

Mary Connolly came off the bench to provide a spark for the Wildcats, leading the team with 14 points, 11 in the first half, including buzzer-beating layups to end both the first and second quarters. Emily Paschke was the leading rebounder in the game with 10.