St. Charles N. strikes back

It paid off twice for Quinten Payne and his St. Charles North teammates to have a short memory Wednesday night playing in front of a frenzied crowd at St. Charles East.

That short memory was helpful in that they didn’t dwell on their previous game, a 4-point outing by Payne in an 11-point loss at Geneva.

And it once again helped to be able to forget about things early when the Saints’ Purdue-bound junior Kendall Stephens came out on fire.

St. Charles North was able to overcome all of that, reversing a 9-point deficit behind its offensive rebounding and solid play up and down its lineup for a key 54-48 victory that keeps the North Stars’ Upstate Eight Conference River Division championship hopes very much alive.

“It’s a huge road conference win,” said North Stars coach Tom Poulin, whose school now leads the series 2-1 this year and 16-6 overall. “We needed that badly.”

The North Stars (12-13, 8-3) can clinch a share of the River championship if they knock off Geneva (13-9, 7-2) at home Saturday in their final conference game. They’ll try to avenge a 53-42 defeat to Geneva just last Friday when the North Stars lost their cool.

“Geneva was pretty frustrating for all of us,” said Payne, a Loyola recruit who scored a game-high 20 points. “We just didn’t play well at all and personally I didn’t play well. It was a good wake-up call you could say.

“We had to get over that one quick. We did a great job as a team really getting after each other in practice. That’s our mentality, just move on to the next one. Like we didn’t start out too well, but we just say next play. That’s all we did with Geneva. That game is done so you have to get the next one.”

St. Charles East (12-9, 7-4) got off to a quick start. After Dom Adduci drove for the first basket, the Saints stepped back to make their next four shots from beyond the arc. Stephens swished three of those 3s, all from the baseline, the final one giving St. Charles East a 14-6 lead.

The North Stars struggled to switch a second man on Stephens when Payne got screened on those early 3s. They got much better at that as the game went on.

“We started defending like we were supposed to and beat Kendall to spots,” Payne said.

Stephens, who eventually fouled out, picked up his second foul late in the first quarter. The Saints still led 17-8, but the game turned in the second quarter.

After hitting 1 of 8 shots in the first quarter, the North stars made 7 of 12 in the second to outscore the Saints 21-7 and grab a 29-24 halftime lead. They also capitalized on 6 Saints turnovers.

“I thought that was the game right there,” Saints coach Pat Woods said. “We were chasing from then on. Some bad turnovers. Turned the momentum back their way and we never recovered.”

Payne fed Kyle Nelson (12 points) for a basket down low at the 4-minute mark to give the North Stars their first lead of the game, 21-19. They didn’t trail again.

Sophomore Alec Goetz nailed a 3 to open a 24-19 lead, and Payne provided a momentum boost with a steal and layup in the final minute.

“Steals are huge,” Payne said. “It’s an easy bucket for the whole entire team. To get us going with momentum at halftime I think was big for us.”

The North Stars also got a lift from their bench. Ryan Thomas made all 4 of his free throws in the second quarter, Jason Weinzirl and Goetz both hit 3s and Justin Stanko made several heady, hustle plays as St. Charles North’s bench outscored East’s bench 11-0.

“We tell them all the time impact the game positively and they definitely did that tonight,” Poulin said.

The North Stars took their biggest lead at 39-27 in the third quarter on Kyle Swanson’s 3. Payne had a breakaway jam in the run, but when Nelson went to the bench with his third foul the Saints chopped the deficit in half at 41-35 heading the fourth quarter.

Stephens brought the Saints fans to their feet with a pair of transition baskets off the turnovers in the final quarter, both times converting 3-point plays including one on a thunderous 2-hand slam while getting fouled.

With their lead cut to 45-43, Swanson drew a foul and made both free throws. Nelson scored inside and Payne had a second-chance basket with 2:18 to go, and the Saints never got within 6 points again.

“I just pulled our guys together and said this is our game,” Payne said. “We just calmed down. You didn’t see any of us worrying or anything.”

The North Stars dominated the boards 37-19 led by Nelson’s 11. They had 15 offensive rebounds.

St. Charles North got to the line 35 times in its victory over the Saints last month, and the North Stars were aggressive again Wednesday. They made 11 of 13 free throws in the first half, and finished 18 of 28 despite a rare stretch of 6 straight misses from Payne.

Stephens, who had 11 points in the game’s first 9 minutes, finished with 19 and Adduci added 14 for the Saints.

“I think we kind of played our way out of the race tonight,” Woods said. “We controlled our own destiny and we didn’t want it bad enough tonight. I think they wanted it more than we did. They did all the little things to win. We had some lapses.”