St. Charles North Downs The Tomcats

Facing a team that doesn’t play like your run-of-the-mill 4-12 team, St. Charles North’s boys basketball team had to make sure it closed out Saturday’s Upstate Eight crossover game at East Aurora strong.

The North Stars showed that they know how to finish off a win.

North hit 17-of-19 free throws in the fourth quarter as a team, which was enough to fend off a game Tomcats squad, 75-64.

Senior guard Alec Goetz was a spotless 10-for-10 from the line in the fourth. The win gave the North Stars two road wins in as many nights after notching a key Upstate Eight River win at Geneva Friday.

“That’s nice when your primary ball-handlers are good free throw shooters,” North coach Tom Poulin said. “We did just enough to win. We can play much better. We have played much better. It wasn’t our best performance, but a lot of that is due to the fact that East Aurora is tough to beat at home. I’m proud of them for coming through and they’re excited about getting it done.”

Goetz scored in the waning seconds of the first, and Jack Callaghan pulled the trick at the end of the second and third quarters. That helped North take a 31-29 lead into the half and a 49-40 lead into the fourth.

“I just like that they’re aware of East Aurora switching to a zone at the end of a quarter,” Poulin said. “We’ve got multiple options at the end of the quarter. This does a really good job of taking what the defense gives them, and they gave us Jack, and he came through.”

The Tomcats are never really out of the game thanks to their three-point shooting, however, which made North’s free throw performance in the fourth all the more important. East hit 11 three-pointers, led by six from KeJuan Davis.

“That kid was hitting them from half court,” Goetz said. “We really had to hit our free throws, that was important. We really stress that a lot in practice.”

Goetz led all scorers with 30 points for North. Callaghan added 15 and Jake Ludwig scored 12.

Davis led a balanced East Aurora attack with 25. Adrian Smith added 10 points off the bench, all in the second half.

“That’s a good basketball team,” East Aurora coach Wendell Jeffries said of North. “Unfortunately we have to measure our improvement in a loss, but we played a very good basketball game tonight. They won the game. It wasn’t us losing the game.”