Naperville C. gives fans something to talk about
Non-partisan boys basketball fans arrived at Oswego High School for Friday's Hoops for Healing Tournament championship game talking about De La Salle.
They left talking about Naperville Central also.
De La Salle, ranked ninth in Class 4A by the Associated Press, won the tourney title 66-61, but the Redhawks won plenty of respect for their hard-nosed play.
"The David and Goliath factor is definitely there in a lot of our games, and we expect that," Meteors coach Tom White said. "But that's what we needed. We came here to play a big game and we got a good game, so that's great. They were making shots."
"A lot of these guys don't have names, but they're going to get them, because the guys on our team, they can flat-out score," Naperville Central 6-foot-8 sophomore Nick Czarnowski said after his teammates made 10 3-pointers. "It's not a surprise to anyone on our team."
The Meteors are quick, young, with only one senior on the roster, and big, playing three players 6-7 or taller, including 6-9 junior Gavin Schilling, the reason Illinois coach Bruce Weber was at Oswego.
"Our two bigs (Schilling and Czarnowski) kind of neutralized each other with the fouls," White said. "They both picked up (four) fouls and they were both in and out and it's hard to get a good game."
The Redhawks' zone defense held Schilling to 6 points on 2-of-4 shooting, but the Meteors got plenty of scoring elsewhere. Alex Foster, a 6-7 junior, led everyone with 20 points, 6-3 Alvin Ellis added 19, and guard Demarcus Richardson had 16.
Czarnowski led the Redhawks with 11 points and 3 blocked shots, and senior guard Bryce Kirk added 10 points. Austin Pauga, the other sophomore in the Naperville Central starting lineup, made three 3-pointers to finish with 9 points.
"Thank god they got a little tired there because we would have been in trouble there if they had fresh legs at the end," White said.
The Redhawks (3-1) hung with the Meteors (4-0) right from the start, but they only led twice, both times late in the second quarter before De La Salle came back to take a 37-36 halftime lead.
De La Salle tried to swat Naperville Central away with a 13-1 run to start the third quarter, but the Redhawks refused to concede. They fought back to within 7 going into the fourth quarter, and a Czarnowski right-handed move on the right block cut the De La Salle lead to 52-51 with 3:41 to play.
"We came out too soft after halftime," Czarnowski said. "We were really excited that we were with them at half, and we can't lighten up at all. We have to come out there with the same mentality. We might have lightened up a little bit, but I thought we did a pretty good job of coming back."
"I'm very pleased with where we're at at this point in the season, just a week in," Naperville Central coach Pete Kramer added. "I thought our kids really played hard, and they're sharing the basketball. We got down (13) and did a nice job fighting back, slowly getting back into it. ...
"I can't say enough about how hard these kids played. They're a great team, a great basketball team, and we were right there. We had our chances."
It doesn't get much easier for the Redhawks, who open DuPage Valley Conference play next Friday by hosting Glenbard East. The Rams, who finished third in Class 4A last spring, have won their last 28 DVC games.