Glenbard East makes it 29 straight

It's the worst kept secret in the DuPage Valley Conference, especially at Glenbard East.

The Rams' boys basketball team started the DVC season with Friday's trip to Naperville Central, and they extended their conference winning streak to 29 in a row with a key 60-52 road victory.

Not that they're thinking about the streak or anything.

"It's in the back of my head every day," said Rams senior forward Dante Bailey. "I wake up thinking about it and go to sleep thinking about it. I just want to keep it alive until I graduate."

The teams traded runs until early in the fourth quarter. Naperville Central sophomore Nick Czarnowski split a pair of free throws to pull the Redhawks (3-2, 0-1) within 44-43, but Glenbard East (3-1, 1-0) exploded with a decisive 12-0 run to finally put the game out of reach.

Bailey, who scored a game-high 20 points, started the run with 7 straight points and Evan Peterson closed it with back-to-back buckets, including a three-point play that made it 56-43 with 2:56 left.

"When they cut the lead to (one), we wanted to come out strong in the first four minutes of the fourth quarter," said Peterson, who finished with 7 points. "Make sure we don't turn the ball over and play good defense because we know they can shoot the ball."

For a time good 3-point shooting kept the Redhawks close. Seven different players combined for eight 3s, but ice-cold shooting for much of the fourth quarter proved difficult to overcome.

The Redhawks shot 2 of 17 in the fourth quarter and were held scoreless for nearly five minutes while Glenbard East went on its run.

"I would never have guessed that we wouldn't be able to put the ball in the basket," said Naperville Central coach Pete Kramer, whose team made only 6 of 14 free throws on the night. "And that was exactly the case. They beat us because we couldn't hit a shot."

Naperville Central held its biggest lead of 6 points in the first quarter and trailed by 12 points midway through the third quarter before rallying to within 44-43.

Czarnowski led the Redhawks with 15 points, while Austin Pauga had 8 points and Kevin Linne and Jabari Hartfield added 7 points. Tahron Harvey and Marcel Cooper scored 8 points off the bench for the Rams.

"They're a talented team, and playing at their place, this was huge for us," said Rams coach Scott Miller. "We're very excited, very happy to come out of here with a 'W'."