Naperville North sees opener slip-slide away

When Naperville North forward Matt Lacosse returns from a football-sustained injury, the Huskies' basketball team will have an inside presence.

Until the 6-foot-6 senior takes off the sideline clothes and dons a uniform, North is going to have its hands full trying to get rebounds and wins.

Geneva took advantage of the Huskies' lack of size, snaring rebounds and second shots in a strong third quarter to grab a 7-point lead and hang on for a 47-44 win in the Monday night opener for both teams during the Hoops for Healing Tournament at Naperville North.

"You don't want to see things slip away like they did," said Geneva coach Phil Ralston, whose team was 7-for-18 at the free-throw line.

"Instead of slamming the door on them, we went out with a whimper a little bit. You'd like to see us play a little stronger at the finish, bring out the daggers but we'll say it's first-game jitters and take the win."

The Huskies could not overtake Geneva despite the poor foul shooting and a long jumper to tie at the end of the game.

"We definitely played hard, I don't know if we played smart," said Huskies coach Jeff Powers. "I don't know if we were physical enough against their inside presence. I think they beat us up on the boards. That took a toll on us."

Geneva guard Will Doeckel did the early damage, knocking down three 3's and scoring 14 first-half points while the rest of the Vikings tried to find their legs.

Senior Dan Trimble got it going in the second half to finish with 16 points, shooting 3 of 5 from behind the arc in the final two quarters.

"First half my legs were achy and I was kind of nervous," said the 6-foot-8 forward. "Then I got into the flow of things and it felt like the middle of the season, not the first game of the season."

Trimble scored 8 points in the third quarter as Geneva started to break away from a back-and-forth game.

"Trimble in the third, he was finding holes in the zone and we weren't identifying the shooter," said North's Jovonn Griffin, who scored a team-high 15 points before fouling out.

Without the tall bodies to rebound, Powers told Griffin and guard Nick Buege to crash the defensive boards.

Buege also fouled out in the fourth quarter after scoring 9 points despite shooting 0-for-6 from 3-point range.

"I think we've got to get the inside-out," Powers said about how they can be more effective shooting. "If we get the ball pushed up faster, but we couldn't push it up because we couldn't rebound. Once we rebound and get the ball up, you have a little easier perimeter shot than the ones we were taking with guys hanging on."

The difference seemed to be the timely shotmaking of Trimble, Doeckel and Marcus Stierwalt and made for a nice opening win for the Vikings, who lost some high-quality players from last year's team.

"A lot of people are doubting us," Trimble said. "It's cool to get our first win and against a good team, too."