Sports
Girls Basketball: North Dominates West Aurora to Advance
Naperville North 61, West Aurora 44. Huskies use a 22-2 first-quarter run to help set up Tuesday's regional semifinal against Benet.
In the two DuPage Valley Conference meetings between the teams during the regular season, Naperville North’s girls basketball team only beat West Aurora by an average of eight points.
In Monday’s third matchup, a Class 4A Naperville North Regional quarterfinal game, however, the Huskies proved that they are indeed playing their best basketball of the season.
North rolled to a 61-44 win to set up a battle with third-seeded Benet at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the regional semifinals.
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“We’ve been on kind of a hot streak,” North coach Jacquie Discipio said. “We’re clearly peaking at the right time. Our girls are coming out with energy. I thought they came out in the first half ready to attack.”
The Huskies (13-15) are at their best when they are out on the break, and that speed was on display early on against the Blackhawks (6-20). A 22-2 run in the first quarter helped North jump out to a 22-5 lead. Eight of the baskets came on layups.
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“We were just full of energy,” said North senior Jenna Jatczak, who scored eight of her 13 points in the first quarter. “We wanted to win this game, so we were all hyped up and ready to play. We want to get to the next level and we think that if we work hard enough, we can win the regional. We’re trying to do our best.”
In the second half, however, the pace seemed to slow a bit and West showed some life, cutting the lead to 44-32 with a 9-2 run. North responded, however, with a 9-0 run that featured five points from Shannon Bushman and four from Emily Koch to push the lead back out to 53-32.
“I think in the third quarter, we didn’t come out with the same energy that we did in the first and second,” said Bushman, who led all scorers with 23 points on 10-of-12 shooting. “We got back to playing our fast-paced game. The first quarter was definitely one of our best starts.”
West took a step back from the previous two matchups with North. For much of the second meeting, the Blackhawks led until the Huskies came back at the end to win by nine.
“We have not been playing well, and it just showed tonight,” West coach Connie Siljendahl said. “The freshmen were really nervous, and that hurt us a lot.”
North will see a familiar foe in Benet Tuesday. Back on Dec. 23, Benet dominated North 64-36 in the final game of its holiday tournament.
“Benet is a strong team and they have strong shooters, but we are a different team than when we played them in December,” Discipio said. “We’re a better team. I think it’s going to be a great competition tomorrow.”
