Glenbard North learns lesson in win over St. Charles North
Glenbard North’s basketball team won for the ninth time in 10 tries Friday night, and more importantly, gained a valuable lesson in the process.
Led by senior forward JJ Hernandez, senior forward Jalen Crues, and sophomore guard/forward Joshua Abushanab, the Panthers (9-1, 5-1) built a 37-19 lead over St. Charles North late in the second quarter and still held a seemingly commanding 58-41 advantage with a minute left in the third quarter.
But the North Stars (5-6, 1-4) went on a 14-3 run, spearheaded by senior forward Parker Reinke’s torrid outside shooting, to pull within 62-58 with 2:09 remaining.
Crues, who scored 9 of his 11 points in the second half, sank a pair of free throws to make it 64-58 with 1:33 left.
After the North Stars made it a 1-possession contest on TJ Gleason’s free throw with 42 seconds remaining, Hernandez split a pair of foul shots with 17 seconds left to help seal the Panthers’ 65-61 DuKane Conference victory Friday night in St. Charles.
“Hopefully, down the road this is a good lesson for us,” said Panthers coach Kevin Tonn. “I like that we ended up with the win but obviously there are things that we can handle better on both ends of the floor. We’ve got to change our mindset of how we want to play with a lead.”
Hernandez paced the Panthers with 27 points and 7 rebounds, while Abushanab added 12 points, and senior guard Jack Schager had 5 points, 6 assists, 3 steals and 3 rebounds.
Reinke scored a game-high 34 points with seven 3-pointers for the North Stars.
“When you let a player score 34 points on you, it’s going to be a high-scoring game,” said Tonn. “He got hot. That’s on me – I didn’t do a great job of making adjustments to help our guys out on the defensive end, but at the same time, we’ve got to be a lot more consistent.”
Hernandez tallied 17 first-half points during the Panthers’ 40-point opening half that featured 7-of-11 shooting from beyond the 3-point arc.
“When we’re rolling and we’ve got five guys engaged on both ends of the floor, we look really good,” said Tonn.
However, the Panthers were outscored 17-6 in the final 8 minutes.
“Throughout the game, we’ve got to play smart,” said Crues. “We have to keep the motor high and no letup the whole game. We get comfortable and a little bit lazy without trying just because we know we have a lead.”
Daniel Connolly added 14 points for the North Stars, who received a late spark from juniors Augie Hoffman, Cam Vine, and Gleason.
“They gave us a spark,” said North Stars coach Tom Poulin. “We’ve been explaining what it takes to win at this level but those are words – what we saw in the second half, that is what it takes to win at this level.”
Reinke helped keep the North Stars within striking distance down the stretch.
“If you give him space and he’s feeling it, you’ve got to run him off the line,” said Poulin. “He has had some nights like that this year. He was on fire, and he was making the right decisions with the ball.”