Larkin tops St. Charles North to clinch share of UEC River title

The casual observer might have looked at composed Larkin leaving the court quietly Saturday at St. Charles North and thought the Royals had won simply another Upstate Eight Conference River game by holding off Alec Goetz, Erik Miller and the Stars, 62-55.

When the Royals got to the locker room, though, the celebrating really began.

 “Almost breathtaking,” Royals senior forward Brayden Royse said. “It’s crazy.”

A strong second quarter and quick start in the third, a 20-point night from Kendale McCullum and a 13-point, 13-rebound game from freshman Christian Negron proved enough to earn the Royals (18-3, 9-0) a three-game UEC River lead with only three left. So they clinched no worse than a share of their second straight River title.

“We celebrated in our locker room,” Negron said. “We wanted to keep it inside, ourselves. It’s a big accomplishment.”

McCullum recalled how Larkin went 4-26 his freshman year and each season has gotten gradually better under coach Deryn Carter.

“So it feels good knowing we brought Larkin back,” McCullum said.

Carter liked seeing the celebration after he sat back in the hall a few minutes first to catch his own breath following a strong finish by St. Charles North (12-7, 6-3).

“We’ve got three home games,” Carter said. “You’ve got to win one. Our guys, you could see it in their eyes. They don’t want to win one. They want to win all three. It’s still not ours alone.”

It became at least half theirs largely because Royse, who had nine total three-pointers on the year, hit three in the second quarter alone, and Negron got inside for three buckets then while the Royals defense dominated for eight minutes. They held North to 2-of-12 shooting in the quarter, and Negron blocked two shots.

Up 17-15 with 5 1/2 minutes left in the first half, Larkin closed with a 15-5 run ending with Royse’s trey at the buzzer.

“I can usually hit them in practice,” Royse said. “Usually we have shooters who go out and shoot, but today was my turn.”

It went from bad to worse for North as Larkin’s Drew Jones made two free throws before the third-quarter clock started running because North’s Garrett Johnson got a technical foul for dunking in halftime warmups. So Larkin got the ball back after the T and showed North what a real dunk looks like: Negron completed the alley-oop play on a pass from McCullum and it was 38-20.

“I thought we made a lot of mistakes that weren’t forced,” North coach Tom Poulin said of Larkin’s 17-7 second-quarter edge. “I thought the game was won and lost in the second — even though it’s never actually won or lost in the second.

“We strung together a couple mistakes defensively and made some poor decisions offensively as far as shot selection, and then they went on a run. You can’t do that against one of the best teams you’ve seen all year.”

North got no closer than five, 56-51, in the closing two minutes with its strong finish, making 16 of 35 from the floor the second half. Goetz and Miller each had 14 total points for North, which is in the same regional with Larkin.

“It could have been better, but I guess we handled the pressure,” McCullum said.