Naperville North finishes better than Oswego
Defense came to the aid of the Naperville North girls basketball team, helping the Huskies pull away in the second half and defeat Oswego 58-49 on Monday in a Class 4A Yorkville regional quarterfinal.
The Huskies (12-14), seeded 12th in the Benet sectional, advance to a Wednesday night regional semifinal against fifth-seeded Neuqua Valley. The Wildcats won both regular-season DuPage Valley Conference meetings against the Huskies.
Naperville North needed some help because the 21st-seeded Panthers (4-26) came out strong on offense and leading 24-19 at halftime.
"Going to the full-court pressure defense spurred us," said Naperville North coach Jason Dycus.
What also helped was the Huskies' free-throw shooting. They went 18 of 21 in the final two quarters.
"Our defense helped our offense. We were getting as many boxouts and rebounds as we could and we were not doing that in the first half," said Huskies senior Cece Pope, who finished with 13 points, all coming in the second half. She also was one of three Naperville North players to finish with double-digit points.
Oswego's Kia Dwight opened the fourth quarter with a 3-point basket to put her team up 41-36. Just more than two minutes passed before teammate Megan Rasmussen hit net and the Panthers were up 43-36.
That's when the Huskies made their move to take permanent control of the game. Sophia Fumagalli sank two free throws and Pope hit net on a putback to pull Naperville North to within 3 points.
Senior Laurel Pereira, who finished with a game-high 19 points, made her presence know in the rally as she sank two free throws followed quickly by a putback basket and then another putback from Fumagalli. Oswego called a timeout with 3:18 to try and stop Naperville North's momentum with the Huskies leading 46-43.
Coming out of the timeout, Rasmussen's basket pulled the Panthers back to within 1, but the Huskies finished the contest on a 12-4 run with 5 of those points coming from free throws.
"Our defensive intensity in the second half helped us put more energy into the game," Pereira said. "We expected a good game tonight. We were off our game from the beginning and they hung with us."
Dycus said the Huskies will have to play even better defense than they showed in the second half against the Panthers.
"We'll have a game plan. We'll be ready," he said.