Naperville North narrowly defeats West Chicago

It was another tale of first-quarter woes for Naperville North on Friday night in West Chicago, as the Huskies again got behind early.

Much like their last game, a strong second quarter helped the Huskies narrowly escape West Chicago for a 42-41 DuPage Valley Conference victory.

West Chicago (2-5, 0-3) came out surging, as their leader Justin Mundt came out guns blazing to the tune of 10 first-quarter points, staking the Wildcats to a 17-12 lead after one quarter.

“We’re working on it; I thought we were better tonight and we were only down five instead of seven or eight,” Naperville North coach Jeff Powers said of his team’s slow start. “I think it takes us a little to get into a rhythm, but credit to them, they had a good game plan defending the stuff we were doing.”

Naperville North (6-2, 3-0) settled in and went on a 9-1 run to start the second quarter behind guard Chris Mullen. The senior guard was the catalyst for the Huskies. He scored 9 points and grabbed 2 rebounds to help Naperville North to its first lead of the game and a 27-25 halftime lead.

“They were going under all the ball screens, so I was just pump faking, then taking it to the hole and trying to be aggressive,” Mullen said.

“We need to do a better job answering their run, and running our stuff and getting the lead back,” Mundt said. “We’re still learning how to win.”

The focal point at halftime seemed obvious for Naperville North; stop Mundt.

“That was the main talk at halftime,” Powers said. “We had to find him, and Kyle Lindberg made it a personal thing to find him and close him out. Mundt is a ballplayer and you have to have someone by him all the time.”

The second half was much more of a defensive battle as neither team could pull away with points at a premium.

“They were getting more physical and they did a good job and played hard,” Mundt said of the defensive effort against him.

Mundt led all scorers with 19 points but was held to just five points in the second half on one made field goal.

“We tried to cut him off from going to the middle,” Mullen said. “We had our center come up and try to stop him from hitting that mid-range shot he was hitting in the first half.”

West Chicago did have a chance in the waning moments, but a potential game-tying 3-pointer by Mundt was blocked, and the tipped shot was converted for two points as time expired for a one-point loss.

“If we come out sharper, we maybe won’t have to win the game at the end like that,” Mullen said.

However, a win is a win, and Naperville North is riding a five-game winning streak heading into Christmas break.

“We don’t play until the day after Christmas, so we can rest, tool-up some things and get ready for the York tournament,” Powers said.