Boys basketball: Okyne, Naperville North keep DVC title hopes alive
Naperville North’s Miles Okyne didn’t quite put the exclamation point on the end of Friday’s game the way he would have liked to, but he and his Huskies teammates were still smiling when the game ended in Aurora.
With the key DuPage Valley Conference contest already in hand, the Huskies stole the ball from the host Warriors late and sent Okyne on his way to a breakaway. While the 6-foot-4 guard did cap the 61-49 victory off with two more points, it wasn’t a clean dunk and he knows he can do better at slamming the ball down.
“I do not consider that a dunk. I thought it was really weak,” said Okyne, who scored nine of his 15 points as the Huskies pulled away with a big second half. “I don’t know what happened. I messed up my footwork and didn’t get up as much as I wanted to. I haven’t had one [dunk] in the high school season, but I’m still hoping for one.”
Despite the minor setback — which was only a setback in terms of style points — Naperville North played a superb second half while improving to 23-6 on the year and 8-1 in the DVC. After a tight, back-and-forth first half, the Huskies outscored the Warriors 19-7 in the third quarter and with the win, will now play unbeaten Neuqua Valley next week with a shot at the league crown.
“We’ve been feeling great but obviously we got a huge game coming up with Neuqua and a shot at the conference championship,” said Okyne, who sank 5 of 6 free throws in the fourth quarter Friday to halt any hopes Waubonsie Valley had to rally. “We needed to get this one done and then focus on what it means later.”
The Warriors (16-11, 4-5) played a strong first half even while 6-7 sophomore Kyler Payne battled foul trouble. The game was tied at 13-13 after one quarter and the Huskies led just 27-24 at the half before they surged after the break.
“I’m really happy with how we played in the first half, especially with Kyler out with foul trouble,” Waubonsie Valley coach Andrew Schweitzer said. “I thought we played great defense and I thought we executed.”
But William Harvey opened the second half with a 3-pointer and then the Huskies took advantage of second and third chances to pad their lead while deflating the Warriors in the process.
“They came out in the third, they hit a shot but then the offensive rebounds piled and we missed a few layups,” added Schweitzer, whose team will face a tough Sycamore team on Saturday. “We didn’t respond very well to be honest with you. The good news about this time of year, you ain’t got much time to think about it.”
For the Huskies, it was yet another game in which several players made an impact. Jack Zitko had four 3s on his way to a team-high 16 points, joining Okyne and Carson Loughlin (11 points) to give the team three players in double figures. Harvey scored all 9 of his points in the second half, and point guard Max Steele pushed the tempo in the second half as the offense started to click.
“I think in the first half our struggle was we weren’t getting the ball past the half court in time and that was just making our possessions shorter,” said Zitko. “In the second half Max did a great job of pushing the ball up the floor, and once that happened everything started to click. They [Warriors] are a tough team so this win tonight is huge.”
Kris Mporokoso and Aidan Lee each tallied 12 points for the Warriors and freshman TJ Adams had 9 points and 5 rebounds off the bench, showing signs that he may have a bright future going forward.