York shoots its way past St. Charles North
Some teams allow you to be a step slow defensively and not make you pay.
York's not one of them.
The Dukes capitalized on the North Stars' lackluster defense twice Thursday night, first in building an 18-point lead in the second quarter and then delivering a knockout punch in the second half. York never trailed in its 72-62 victory.
St. Charles North (5-5) failed to sustain the momentum from Tuesday's win over Schaumburg while York (6-3) took home a positive to build on with 9 days off until its Jack Tosh tournament.
"Scouting them you could see they had multiple shooters," St. Charles North coach Tom Poulin said. "We didn't have the energy we had Tuesday. They had too many looks where nobody was around them. That was just energy and accepting being screened."
Those shooters combined to make 9 of 14 three-pointers (64 percent) while also shooting well at the free-throw line (15 of 20) and field (22 of 42).
Evan Fendley had the hot hand early, draining 5 of his first 6 three-pointers, the final one giving the Dukes a 36-19 lead with four minutes left in the first half.
On the verge of being blown off its home floor, the North Stars answered with a 14-1 push to end the first half, capped by Beau Blakeley's off-balance 3-pointer at the buzzer that cut the Dukes' lead to 37-34.
"St. Charles North is a really fine team and those kids play hard and they weren't just going to take a beatdown," York coach Al Biancalana said. "You knew they were going to come back. And they threw a punch and we didn't punch back in the first half and we lost all the momentum and all the good things we had done."
Sam Cleary, who missed most of the first half in foul trouble, got the Dukes going with a 3-pointer to start the second half. The Dukes built their lead to 49-41 after three quarters.
The North Stars scored the first five points of the fourth quarter to pull within 49-46 before the Dukes caught fire again. Three-pointers by Cody Kliethermes and Will Sullivan sandwiched a Cleary bucket that gave the Dukes 8 points in a 64-second span.
"Every time we made a run we followed with a couple mistakes defensively and against someone like York it's two or three points because they are very well coached and run their stuff well," Poulin said. "We made fundamental mistakes on positioning and where to be."
That burst put the North Stars in an 11-point hole they couldn't recover from, with the Dukes closing the game out in the final few minutes much better than they have been.
"We've been struggling sustaing some leads and we did a good job of spreading the floor and passing the ball and getting some easy shots and making our free throws," Biancalana said.
Fendley scored 18 of his game-high 20 points in the first half. Sullivan came on strong in the second half with 12 of his 17 points and Cleary added 13.
David Johnson (18 points), Josh Mikes (13) and Blakeley (10) all scored in double figures for the North Stars, who start play in the Jacobs tournament at 10:30 a.m. Saturday against St. Edward.
"We didn't come out with the energy you need to be able to compete with somebody like York," Poulin said. "That's (an 18-point first half deficit) what happens when you kind of go through the motions. We challenged the guys in the timeouts to compete and when they did we had some success and made it a ballgame."