Glenbard East overpowers Naperville Central
Defending Glenbard East's boys basketball team is like picking from a smorgasbord of poisons.
Friday against visiting Naperville Central, the Rams pulled away to a 73-56 DuPage Valley Conference victory as different players continually helped keep the Redhawks at bay.
Putting four players in double-digit scoring, Glenbard East (7-1, 3-0) never trailed despite letting the Redhawks (6-3, 1-2) pull within 2 points twice in the second half.
"The big thing about us is that we've got a lot of guys out there who can score," said Rams junior Johnny Hill. "Playing together as a unit really gets us through games. One guy doesn't have to score 20 points a game. It's all about playing together as one."
Glenbard East, which opened the game with Zach Miller's alley-oop pass for a dunk by Lee Skinner, burst out of the gate while hitting 10 of 18 first-quarter shots. Shawn Havenga, Jack Merrithey and Miller combined for five 3-pointers as the Rams built a 13-point lead.
The Redhawks withstood the barrage and clawed back, although they suffered a blow in the second quarter when they lost David Niggins on a scary play.
The 6-foot-6 junior flew to the basket trying to grab a rebound, but he flipped over a Glenbard East player and landed awkwardly on the court. Niggins got up under his own power but didn't return.
The Redhawks dominated the boards at times - Matt Neufeld grabbed 16 rebounds and Bobby Czarnowski added 10 - but couldn't translate it into many points. They squandered way too many putbacks on a night when they needed a ton of offense against the Rams.
"It's hard to defend them, I mean, that's why they scored 70-something points," said Redhawks coach Pete Kramer. "I don't think we're that bad defensively. You just go to help on one guy to stop penetration, and they just kick it out to another guy."
Neufeld twice scored in the third quarter to narrow the gap to 2 points. Hill and Merrithey, however, countered with 3-pointers to give the Rams a 55-49 lead heading to the fourth quarter. Hill scored 7 of his 16 points in the first four minutes of the final period to boost the advantage to double digits.
Miller scored 15 points, Merrithey had 13 and Skinner 12 points. Neufeld and Czarnowski each scored 16 points for Naperville Central.
"We came out and played an outstanding first quarter," said Glenbard East coach Scott Miller. "They did a nice job of making a run and bringing it back, but then coming out of halftime we were able to get another burst. We tightened up defensively, rebounded a little better, took care of the ball at the end. That's kind of our formula."