St. Charles North tops Jacobs for Poulin's 200th win
St. Charles North's basketball team played catch-up for the majority of the time during Tuesday night's nonconference game against Jacobs.
Trailing by as many as 10 points early in the third quarter, the North Stars (4-3) still found themselves behind the Golden Eagles 28-20 late in the same period.
From there, the North Stars scored 8 unanswered points to tie it at 28-28 and eventually took the lead for good at 31-30 on Luke Scheffers' 3-point play with 4:19 remaining en route to their 37-30 victory in St. Charles.
"I thought we did a real nice job defensively of making them uncomfortable," said North Stars coach Tom Poulin, who collected his 200th career victory at St. Charles North. "They're a hard team to do that to because they don't take bad shots, they're well-disciplined and well-coached on both ends.
"It was a dogfight and we were able to pull it out at the end. I'm real proud of our guys."
Things didn't look quite as promising when the Golden Eagles (4-5) led 25-15 after Jaden Henderson's 3-point play with 6:29 left in the third quarter.
"You almost felt like you were running out of time and you're still in the third quarter," admitted Poulin.
The North Stars inched their way back with a 6-0 run to close out the third quarter and featured Tyler Czerniak's 3-pointer from the corner and Christian Czerniak's layup with 3 seconds left in the period.
Jacobs took its final lead at 30-28 on a 10-foot runner by senior guard Matt McCoy (10 points, 4 rebounds) with 5:41 remaining but misfired on its last 7 field goal attempts.
"We played a very similar game on Friday night (51-48 loss to Hampshire)," said Jacobs coach Jimmy Roberts. "We were up 7 at the half and we were up 7 at the end of the third quarter but we just couldn't find a way to win down the stretch.
"We were thinking maybe that was the one but unfortunately we kind of fell into a similar thing tonight. We need to make one more play to shake us out of this."
Henderson led the Golden Eagles with 15 points, including 8 of the team's 10 second-half points.
"You have to have a hump moment - a moment where you get over the hump and you kind of figure some things out," said Roberts. "Defensively, we were a ton tonight. We have to close out games. Hopefully we figure it out sooner rather than later."
Scheffers led the North Stars with 11 points, while Lucas Heflen added 10 points and 5 rebounds. Conor Linke and Tyler Czerniak finished with 6 points apiece.
"Defense is the main thing our team is focused on," said Scheffers. "We know we have offensive threats but defense is the thing that will set us apart from teams."
Now in his 13th season, Poulin improved his record to 200-146 with the milestone win.
"I waited a long time just to get a shot," said Poulin. "To get an opportunity and now to have 200 (wins), it's great.
"I want to thank all of the current and former players, coaches and parents for their support over the past 13 years."