Wheaton North surges past WW South
The Wheaton cross-town boys basketball game is tough enough on a normal night.
It looked darn near impossible as both teams struggled mightily in the third quarter of Friday’s game on the north side.
Wheaton North, however, finally pulled itself together midway through the fourth quarter and surged to a 63-50 DuPage Valley Conference win over the visiting Tigers.
“You kind of go through a drag in the third quarter and all of a sudden you’re like, all right, we’ve got to step it up,” said Wheaton North’s Jeff Schalk, who scored 8 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, including a pair of 3-pointers. “Our team luckily came out and stepped it up.”
The Falcons (8-5, 2-2) broke a four-game slide against WW South (6-7, 1-3), but the win wasn’t secured until the final minute when Wheaton North closed the game with 8 straight points. The late burst started with Mike Fitzpatrick’s dunk and finished with 6 free throws.
The push by Wheaton North, though, began minutes earlier after a 7-2 Tigers run at the start of the fourth quarter narrowed WW South’s gap to 42-41. A putback by Nick Barry, a 3-pointer by Fitzpatrick and a pair of 3s by Schalk powered the Falcons to a 53-44 lead.
Four players scored for the Falcons as they opened their biggest lead of the second half. Wheaton North had built a 21-10 lead on Richard Finley’s three-point play early in the second quarter.
“All year our games haven’t been much different than this,” said Falcons coach Jim Nazos. “They’ve been up and down. The team does a great job of staying in there when things aren’t going well. It’s a sign of maturity.”
The Tigers rallied for their final lead of 34-33 midway through the third quarter, but then didn’t score for the final 5 minutes, 16 seconds of the period. They trailed 40-34 heading to the fourth quarter after a Schalk 3-pointer.
The Tigers’ Reilly O’Toole led all scorers with 22 points, while Finley scored 12 points and Fitzpatrick had 11 points for the Falcons.
WW South shot 2 of 15 from the field in the third quarter, 4 of 17 in the fourth and made only 27 percent of its shots on the night.
“We haven’t shot the ball well but, most important, our effort was unbelievable,” said Tigers coach Mike Healy. “We’ve got good shooters and we want those guys shooting the basketball. And, you know what, we’ll keep shooting them.”