Starks, West Aurora pull even with Naperville North
Shooting over a Naperville North defense that was a little loose, Juwan Starks and West Aurora tightened up the DuPage Valley Conference race.
Starks scored 20 of his game-high 23 points in the first half, hitting 4 of 7 from 3-point range to propel the Blackhawks to a 64-53 win Friday night in Naperville.
“I really think they didn’t respect my shot, they would play me to drive a lot,” Starks said. “So whatever room I had, I just pulled it and made the shot.”
West Aurora (20-4, 10-2) tied the host Huskies in the DVC race with two games left. The Blackhawks and Naperville North (17-7, 10-2) are two games up on 8-4 Glenbard North.
Taking advantage of 2 fouls called in the first two minutes on Naperville North’s top defender, Kyle Lindberg, Starks hit 3s from the right, the top of the key and the left side to go with a driving basket and a putback to lead West Aurora to a 19-7 lead after a quarter.
“It definitely wasn’t the defensive plan,” said Huskies coach Jeff Powers. “Somehow we didn’t stress to our boys enough that he could score, and we did a very poor job of finding him and leaving him.
“He’s the type of shooter that he makes one, he gains confidence and then he gets the mojo going and then you’re in trouble.”
The trouble continued. Starks scored 7 more points in the second quarter and both Jayquan Lee and Chandler Thomas got in on the action. Lee canned a pair of 3s and Thomas scored inside off Lee and Jontrel Walker assists to put West Aurora up 38-22 at halftime. The Blackhawks made 16 of 26 first-half shots.
Playing mainly a 3-2 zone in the first half, Naperville North emphasized man defense in the second but couldn’t draw closer than 58-48 on Matt Stacho’s 3 with 58 seconds left to play.
Stacho scored a team-high 18 points. David Sinickas added 14 for the Huskies. Lee and Thomas each scored 10 for West Aurora and Walker had 13.
“I think we just looked too far a little bit, got a little timid because it was a big game,” Stacho said. “Now we’ve got to come out strong tomorrow. We have to turn around real quick because we’ve got (Naperville) Central tomorrow night.”