With each and every game, Mitch Lewis is getting more and more comfortable for Naperville North.
For a deep team already on a roll, that’s a scary proposition for the rest of the DuPage Valley Conference.
Lewis’ season-high 21 points helped spur a collective Huskie uprising early and stem Metea Valley late as Naperville North hung on for a wire-to-wire, 74-68 DVC victory on Friday.
Lewis was one of three players, along with Cam Hardy and Chris Johnson, to reach double figures for Naperville North (15-3, 8-1), which won for the sixth straight time.
“Definitely,” said Lewis, who had 13 of those game-high 21 points in the second half. “I’m just the more and more I play (coming off the two injuries), I’m just getting more comfortable with my team and the chemistry back together.”
Courtesy of the victory and Lake Park’s loss at Wheaton Warrenville South, Naperville North holds sole possession of first place in the DVC’s loss column.
Making his first start of the season, Lewis wasted no time in scoring the Huskies’ first two baskets of the night as part of a 24-point first quarter for the Huskies.
That 24-point quarter saw the Huskies jump to leads of 7-0, 11-1, 22-10 on their way to building a 12-point lead at its conclusion.
From there, the lead ballooned to 20 points at 34-14 as Naperville North answered a Matt Helwig bucket to open the second with a 10-0 run.
“Great start,” Naperville North coach Jeff Powers said. “We had a lot of energy, moved the ball. Had a lot of mismatches – we were able to take them to them. Mitch looked awful good to start the game and then once (the Mustangs) went to the run and jump, we lost a little bit of our composure.”
Undaunted, Metea Valley (9-13, 4-6) concluded the first half on a 12-0 run to get within eight points at the break.
Eight third-quarter points from Helwig, who scored 16 points, aided a run that got the Mustangs within three points towards the tail end of the third at 47-44.
“I’m proud of the effort, proud of the way they crawled and scratched,” Metea Valley coach Bob Vozza said. “I don’t know why (Naperville North) caught us off-guard. We knew they’re playing with a lot of confidence. They play with high energy. They attack people, so we were kind of on our heels to begin with and it kept unraveling in the second quarter.
“We went to some trapping and I liked kind of the aggressiveness we had. They started missing some shots. We started making some shots, made it a game. I thought we had some good stretches in the second half where it seemed like we had the ball, we’re within one possession and things just didn’t work out.”
The two teams exchanged the first five scoring opportunities of the fourth, ended by two Tristan Schlosser free throws for the Mustangs, as the Huskies held a four-point lead with 5:56 to play.
Lewis, Hardy and Johnson proceeded to combine to score the Huskies’ next nine points during a 9-2 run that gave them some breathing room to stay in control.
“It was certainly a good contribution from Mitch and Chris Johnson (13 points) down in the post,” said Hardy, who finished with 18 points. “And we practice all week on switching screens, getting up on D because we’ve been making them attack the hole fast. So it was just a matter of playing defense the whole game.”
After Helwig’s team-high 16, Schlosser (14), Montrell Oliver (12) and Harrison Kranz (10) all scored in double figures for the Mustangs.
