Huskies seniors make sure they get first win at Naperville Central
Naperville North’s quick, veteran backcourt has been wreaking havoc on opposing offenses for three years now, forcing plenty of turnovers and converting them into more than their share of transition buckets. But until Friday night, they hadn’t had much luck on their rival’s home court.
That all changed as the Huskies’ trio of Cole Arl, Bryce Welch and Luke Williams pressured host Naperville Central into 19 first-half turnovers while building a 34-19 lead that eventually ended up in a 58-41 DuPage Valley Conference win for the Huskies (6-4, 1-2). While the defense started fast, the offense also jumped out to a strong start with forward Jack Kallstrand hitting a pair of 3-pointers early while tallying 8 of his game-high 19 points in the first quarter.
“Our emphasis this week was ball pressure. We wanted to get up and pressure them,” said Kallstrand, who had 13 points in the first half. “They have some younger guys so getting up the pressure was a key for us and that helped us get off to a good start.”
The Huskies moved the ball well, and Arl and Williams added 3s in the big first half, but the speedy offense also led to a number of slashing layups from Welch, who finished the night with 14 points and 3 steals.
“Everything starts on the defensive end for us,” Kallstrand added. “A couple times this year we’ve come out a little slow to start so tonight we wanted to make sure we came out and jumped on them.”
Welch added that the seniors didn’t want to close out their careers winless on the Redhawks’ floor.
“A lot of emotion,” Welch said when asked about his final year as a Huskie. “Coach [Gene Nolan] always says it’s our last year, but we want it to be a year of firsts. We’re trying to do things we’ve never done before. Whether it’s individual goals, team goals…his focal point is don’t think of it as your last, make it a year of firsts.
“I know me, Cole and Luke, since we’ve been on varsity, we’ve never won here.
So this is the first time. Making it a year of firsts has been the biggest thing for us.”
Naperville Central, which dropped to 5-6 overall and 0-3 in the DVC, was plagued by too many giveaways on Friday.
“Our foot speed hurts us a little bit and they’re quick on the perimeter and they’re very experienced,” Redhawks coach Pete Kramer said. “Those three guards have been around since they were sophomores. They played well.”
But Kramer knows his team can play better than it did and he expects them to do so.
“I don’t think we played very well. We turned the ball over…if we don’t do that…we stop them and we stop them and we turn it over,” he said, adding that their loss to West Aurora earlier this week can be attributed to turnovers. “We just need to make better decisions and play with a little more confidence.”
Forward Ross DeZur paced Naperville Central with 11 points, while center Jackson First had 7 points, a game-high 9 rebounds and 2 blocked shots.