Fast start boosts Naperville North

It took a long break to finally produce a quick start for Naperville North's boys basketball team.

The Huskies opened strong in the 38th annual Jack Tosh Holiday Classic at York, dominating Kenwood in a 60-44 victory Tuesday in Elmhurst. Naperville North plays Lyons Twp., a winner over Waubonsie Valley, at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday in the quarterfinals.

"We came out and tried to get a little bit quicker start in the first quarter," said Huskies forward Mike Keane, who led a balanced effort with 13 points. "We normally start out really slow, and we just wanted to pick up the pace a little bit."

Rust from a nine-day layoff was nonexistent for the Huskies (7-2), who built a 20-10 lead on Matt Stacho's 3-pointer midway through the second quarter. Kenwood (5-2) never came closer than 6 points away the rest of the game.

"One of the things that we're noted for is our slow starts, and today I felt we got off to a little bit better start, hit some shots, played some defense," said Naperville North coach Jeff Powers.

Naperville North received some offense from just about everyone. Nine of the 12 players who hit the court scored including six with at least 6 points. Kevin Swanson scored a game-high 18 points for the Broncos.

The Huskies built their biggest lead of 48-28 early in the fourth quarter on Anthony Rehayem's bucket. David Sinickas scored 10 points, Max Lewis had 9, Derek Westman 8 points, Stacho 7 points and Kyle Lindberg scored 6 points.

"We got a lot of help from everybody," Keane said. "We have good depth on our bench, a lot of good players. And we can all shoot."