All year long while espousing the theory of the sum being greater than the individual parts, Naperville North has been led by Baylor Griffin and Mitch Lewis.
As the regular season officially drew to a close Wednesday night, the duo of the senior in Griffin and the sophomore in Lewis was at it again in combining for 20 points as Naperville North cruised to a fourth straight victory, courtesy of a 62-41 DuPage Valley Conference triumph over Glenbard North in Naperville.
Back on the court for the first time since Jan. 31 after serving a four-game suspension, Lewis wasted little time in making an impact.
Entering the game during the final minute of the first quarter, Lewis scored the first basket of the second quarter by converting a three-point play to help highlight scoring all seven of his points in the second as the Huskies turned a three-point lead at the end of the first into a 12-point halftime lead at 30-18.
All seven of Lewis’ points came during a 9-4 run for Naperville North (15-10, 7-3) to start the second, prompting a Glenbard North timeout with 5:12 left to play in the half.
“I mean, it felt great just to be back with my teammates, my brothers and just to get back to the feel of everything. … I mean, I just knew that, you know, we got this game (upcoming against Glenbard North on Monday) and then, you know, if we win that, West Aurora,” Lewis said. “And I just got to get back into the flow because it’s been awhile since I’ve been playing. So I just wanted to get back to the regular (flow).”
From there, the Huskies’ leading scorer in Griffin at 11.8 points a game coming into Wednesday night, took over.
Griffin had seven of his game-high 13 points in the third as the Huskies stretched their lead out to 17 points going to the fourth.
“I mean, the third quarter, we just knew we had to step up on defense and we did. We got some stops. We stopped their three-point shooters,” Griffin said. “We stopped the middle penetration and we started pushing the ball a little bit better and we got out in transition and we were just moving the ball a little bit better.”
In the dress rehearsal to Monday’s meeting between the two teams in the second quarterfinal of the Class 4A West Aurora Regional, Naperville North led wire-to-wire and by as much as 24 points while getting scoring from 12 players.
Of the 12 who scored for the Huskies, five recorded at least six points: Griffin, Lewis, Cameron Hardy, Tyler Bushman and Chris Gajcak.
That type of balance is exactly what Naperville North coach Jeff Powers wants to see with the state tournament beckoning on Monday.
“We keep telling the boys that if they share the ball, they’ll all get points, they’ll all get assists and they did a good job sharing the ball,” he said. “I think, more importantly, they did a really good job defensive rebounding and the second half, we did a nice job of pushing the ball up and I think we had 10 fast-break points. So that’s (a positive).”
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