Boys Basketball: Wheaton Warrenville South blows out St. Charles North in DuKane Conference opener

ST. CHARLES – Wheaton Warrenville South may have graduated the majority of its core from last season’s team that reached a sectional final, but the overall makeup and identity of what made that team so lethal clearly has not changed one year later.

The Tigers graduated Matt Sommerdyke, Tyler Fawcett and Danny Healy from the squad that lost only three games. The collective effort from Jake Vozza, Colin Moore and Co. indicated another dominating stretch certainly will not be out of the question after a 58-28 win over St. Charles North on Dec. 2.

Wheaton Warrenville South forced 14 turnovers and rode its stifling ball press defense to plenty of offensive chances the other way. Five Tigers scored in double digits and they again put the DuKane Conference on notice.

They’re still the same Tigers year in, year out.

“You watch your whole life Tiger basketball and how hard the guys play. You just want to play how they did,” said Moore, who had 10 points and four rebounds. “Coach [Mike Healy] really emphasizes defense, defense, defense, play your tails off on the defensive end. Deflections, charges, whatever it takes and then it will lead to offense.”

“The biggest thing for us is play as hard as you can nonstop. No letup ever,” Tigers senior guard Jake Vozza said after his 10-point effort. “That’s really been the staple of Tiger basketball forever.”

WW South (4-1, 1-0) led 38-15 at halftime and rode a dominating third quarter that ended with the Tigers leading by 34 points.

Senior forward Braylen Meredith did not dress for the Tigers for unspecified reasons. Healy said he expects Meredith back in action soon.

Even without Meredith, the Tigers had little trouble establishing themselves early. Vozza got off to a quick start with four points within the first minutes of the first quarter and rode that collective wave, as did everyone else.

“[Healy] called a nice play getting me in the post early,” Vozza said. “And just doing my job. Taking open shots when my teammates give me them.”

“All our guys, we talked about if we, it snowballs, so if we get guys off to a good start, it seems it kind of snowballs into lots of things going well. They all played well,” Healy said. “Jake played well, Colin played well, Luca [Carbonaro] played well. We got great help from our bench with Aidan [Dalby], and Brody [Canfield] came in and gave a spark. Our guys played really, really well tonight.”

Max O’Connell had 12 points. Canfield had 11 points and two rebounds. Carbonaro had 10 points to lead a complete effort for the Tigers.

St. Charles North (1-5, 0-1) endured a bit of a gut-check game. The North Stars maintain hope that a younger team will play stronger closer to February and into March.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” North Stars coach Tom Poulin said. “We’re going to get the work done and we’re going to get there. We have a long way to go to figure out how to win basketball games. It’s a new group of people that are learning how to work together. ... We also got outworked. They were the first team out on the floor. They were the more physical team and we didn’t take care of the basketball.”

The North Stars were paced by Jake Furtney’s seven points and four rebounds. Parker Reinke had six points. Danny Connolly had five points.

“We haven’t taken care of the basketball [well] this season,” Poulin said. “So we need to get better at that and every possession is a teachable moment. We’re going to look at it that way. We’re just trying to build on our experiences and I really, honestly, believe when it’s all said and done and we begin the tournament, this team is going to be right there.”