Another great start keys Naperville Central win
Naperville Central knew exactly what was on the line in Thursday night's girls basketball game: First place in the DuPage Valley Conference, winner no longer has to share.
With four games left in the season, it's all Naperville Central's as long as they can hold onto it.
The Redhawks scored the game's first 18 points and then never let WW South get closer than 7 in a 47-35 victory in Naperville.
"The kids were fired up," Redhawks coach Andy Nussbaum said. "We've been saying for a long time we've got our destiny in our own hands. ... We've still got a long way to go, but this one feels really nice."
"We just had a lot of energy on defense and came out ready to play," Naperville Central senior Hannah Swarm added. "We started getting off to better starts in the DVC. We knew we needed a big one tonight. I'm so proud of how everyone came out and played."
The Redhawks' start also felt nice to them. They held WW South scoreless the first seven minutes of the game until freshman Mira Emma's 3-pointer, the team's 10th shot of the quarter, broke the drought.
"You can't win a game in the first few minutes, but you can lose one," Tigers coach Rob Kroehnke said. "It's one of those where the last couple of weeks we've gotten off to these slow starts. ... And we just can't afford to chase good teams. They're too good. They spread the floor, they run their stuff, they hit their free throws."
Emma's shot started a 13-2 run for the Tigers, who twice fought back within 7 points in the middle periods. In the fourth quarter Sarah Struebing's 3-pointer off an Emma assist made the score 43-34 with four minutes to go. But Swarm answered with three free throws to bump the margin back to double digits for good.
"They just caused more problems for us on defense, I think, and it took us a little time to settle down," Swarm said.
"It's a credit to the kids," Kroehnke added of the comeback attempts. "It's just too bad we took (seven) minutes to get going."
Naperville Central (19-7, 10-2) has won its last six games and 13 of its last 16.
"We're playing good right now," Nussbaum said. "I like it."
The Redhawks knocked WW South (15-7, 9-3) out of first place for the first time this season.
"We looked really good early, weathered some rough spots, and then toward the end I thought we did what we needed to do to win the game," Nussbaum said.
Lakstigala led all scorers with 17 points, and Swarm added 12.
Sophomore Jayla Johnson's 11 points were the most on the Tigers' side of the scorebook.
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