O'Toole puts on a show for WW South

Midway through the fourth quarter Friday night, finding his path to the basket blocked by a Wheaton North defender, Wheaton Warrenville South junior Reilly O'Toole stopped just a couple of feet from the basket, turned and sent a no-look, behind-the-back pass to teammate Travis Kern in the right corner for a 3-pointer.

It was that kind of night for O'Toole.

The 6-foot-4 guard scored 26 points and grabbed 7 rebounds in the Tigers' 65-37 victory against its cross-town rival at WW South.

"I got the ball down low and the guy came up off me, and I was trying to find who he was guarding," O'Toole said of the play. "Travis was in the corner and I was wondering if I could get the ball to him, so I kind of just threw it behind my back and he made the shot. So it's all good."

"He's good," WW South coach Mike Healy added. "He was aggressive. He's always been good, but I thought he was more aggressive, which is good for us. He's a pretty talented kid offensively, but sometimes he defers, which is good, but tonight it was good to see him aggressive."

The game was all good for the Tigers, especially the second half.

O'Toole got the Tigers (10-3, 3-1 DuPage Valley Conference) out to a good start, scoring 9 points as they took a 10-2 lead. The Falcons (6-7, 2-2) kept the margin to 5 at halftime, however.

"We came out with great energy, defensively and offensively," O'Toole said. "We were running good offense, getting open shots. That's key to start a game, you've got to start off fast."

WW South gradually pulled away, getting the lead back to double digits on a Will Dolatowski 3-pointer with 4:47 to play in the third quarter. The Tigers hit nine 3-pointers for the game.

The Tigers opened up the game with a 23-8 fourth quarter.

"It was 8, next thing I know it was 25," Wheaton North coach Jim Nazos said. "They can score. They hit open shots, and they defend well."

Kern added 12 points off the bench. Mike Small led Wheaton North with 10 points. But this was O'Toole's night.

"He's a nice player," Nazos said of O'Toole. "He played well. He hit shots when he had them. He was able to create some too. He did a lot of things right. He played really well, as did their whole team, especially offensively in the fourth quarter. They capitalized when we tried to speed up the game there a little bit."