Boys Basketball: Naperville Central hands Glenbard East first DVC loss
BY BLAKE BAUMGARTNER For Sun-Times Media January 25, 2013 11:20PM
Naperville Central's Patrick Maloney hauls in a rebound over Glenbard East's Mike Hansen. | Mike Mantucca ~ For Sun-Times Media
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In a schedule that continues to test Naperville Central as the season moves along, it certainly hasn’t let up.
With games against No. 6 Benet and No. 15 West Aurora coming within the next four nights, Naperville Central welcomed its latest challenge to town Friday — DuPage Valley Conference-leading Glenbard East.
Responding in a big way behind four players reaching double figures, Naperville Central rolled to a 68-47 victory in Naperville.
Building on their four-point halftime lead by extending it out to 10 points during the third quarter, the Redhawks saw the Rams start to build some momentum by going on a 8-0 run to get to within 40-38 early in the fourth.
But Naperville Central (13-6, 6-2) responded by utilizing a 28-9 run to end the game.
“Going into halftime, we knew that they were going to get back into the game and make their pushes, but it’s a game of runs. You gotta keep on fighting,” Naperville Central’s Ryan Antony said.
Antony, junior center Nick Czarnowski, senior Nick Lopez and senior guard Mike Blaszczyk combined to put up 57 of the 68 points the Redhawks scored.
“We were very prepared for this game. I just thought it was a total team effort, but our guards just were really active,” Naperville Central coach Pete Kramer said. “Our matchup zone, we switched and did different things in it and the kids just executed it great.
“At the offensive end, I thought we just took care of the ball. I thought Ryan was outstanding (Friday) night. He only had one turnover. He had the ball in his hands a lot against two very good guards in (Tahron) Harvey and (JaRon) Hall.”
Despite receiving a combined 42 of its 47 points from a quartet of players in senior Harvey, senior Mike Kjeldsen, junior Hall and senior Marvin Grant-Clark, Glenbard East (12-6, 7-1 DuPage Valley) showed little resistance toward stopping the Redhawks’ offense in falling into a first-place tie atop the DVC with West Aurora.
“I think you gotta start off giving Naperville Central a lot of credit, especially after the way we handled them at (our) place (in a 59-41 Rams’ victory on Nov. 30 in Lombard),” Glenbard East coach Scott Miller said. “They obviously have been working to prepare for us and they did a great job. I thought they executed in every phase of the game.”
The Redhawks seized control by ending the first half on a 10-2 run to turn a 20-16 deficit into a 26-22 halftime lead.
Naperville Central’s starting backcourt of Antony and Lopez combined for 13 first-half points, including having contributed seven of Naperville Central’s 10 points to finish out the first half.
“It was just a good win, especially after the first time that we played them,” Kramer said. “We went over there. We weren’t healthy and we weren’t ready and they took it to us. So this was a good win over a very good basketball team.”
