Downers Grove North, 11 seniors strong, keeping up program’s winning ways: Suburban Life boys basketball notes

Downers Grove North entered this season in quite a different spot than the last two.

The Trojans, who graduated four of five starters including All-Stater Jack Stanton off a team that won the program’s second straight sectional championship, had little fanfare surrounding them.

They were inexperienced, but they were not young. This particular Downers Grove North team is 11 seniors strong.

“We talked about at the beginning of the year, not living in the shadows of those guys that graduated,” Downers Grove North coach Jim Thomas said. “These guys want to make a name for themselves.”

They’re doing just that.

The Trojans quietly started the season 8-0, and after a win Tuesday over Oak Park-Park River Forest are now 14-4 and 3-1 in the West Suburban Silver, right in the thick of the conference race.

Scoring is limited – Downers Grove North averages a tick under 50 points per game – but with solid defense that gives up less than 40 a game Thomas believes this group is “right there” and can compete with most teams.

No surprise, after competing every day in practice with the previous core that won a combined 61 games the past two years.

“They got to play with them all year and we told the JV guys your toughest games are in practice. We feel fortunate that those kids bought into that in a limited role last year,” Thomas said.

“They all played together in our feeder program, another solid group of kids growing up in the community program. It is second nature to them to pick up where those guys left off.”

Downers Grove North’s best player and lone returning starter, 6-foot-4 senior forward Aidan Akkawi, is also a volleyball standout who will play that sport collegiately at Lindenwood.

He’s stuck with basketball this winter, even in a busy schedule that has Akkawi at times playing club volleyball and basketball on the same weekend – even the same day.

Akkawi missed two of Downers Grove North’s losses to Deerfield and Glenbrook North while out of town competing for one of the last two spots on the USA’s under-19 national volleyball team. He’ll also be gone this weekend when Downers Grove North plays Lyons Friday, and three games at Wheaton Warrenville South’s MLK Shootout.

“We’re a little different when he’s not there,” Thomas said. “Not as tough defensively and not as good offensively.”

The rest of the returning experience comes from Bobby Grganto, a post that came off the bench last year to spell Jake Riemer and “just kept getting better,” and Jack Crowley, a “smart, cerebral” guard who gave the Trojans good minutes last year backing up Owen Thulin.

“We don’t score like last year, but we’re competing at a really high level,” Thomas said. “You do that, you give your guys opportunities. If we continue to show up good things will happen.”

Glenbard West keeps perspective

Glenbard West (12-4, 3-1) opened eyes in the season’s first month with an 8-0 start, but it’s been an up and down last few weeks for the Hilltoppers.

Glenbard West lost by 20 to Lyons, its first loss, and was upset by Nazareth in the first round of the Jack Tosh Holiday Classic.

Back-to-back losses to St. Laurence and Palatine followed as the calendar flipped to January, but Glenbard West coach Jason Opoka was quick to put things in perspective.

“We’re a typical kind of young team in the sense that there will be come inconsistency,” said Opoka, noting that a monster week in December, wins over DeKalb, Hinsdale Central and Stevenson, might have come back to bite them against Lyons. “We have to look at the big picture. We want to be playing our best basketball when conference comes around and when regionals and sectionals come around. We’re in a nice position in conference, everyone has one loss. We control our own destiny.

“Fix some of the deficiencies, get more of togetherness and buy-in and culture and tradition. If we can put that together we’ll be OK.”

The Hilltoppers did benefit from nine days off, coming back to beat Proviso West Tuesday.

“Great week and a half of practice, excited to get back on the court,” Opoka said.

Opoka is likewise excited about a unique opportunity Jan. 25, when Glenbard West hosts Joliet West in the first of a home-and-home the next two years.

“Joliet West coach Jeremy Kreiger and I were college teammates at the University of St. Francis, been buddies for a long time,” Opoka said. “It’s helpful. Different styles, different communities. We’re going to them next year.”

Lemont ‘really close’

Lemont came into the season with much anticipation, what with the transfer of highly-regarded junior Gabe Sularski from Benet.

Coming off a weekend in which Lemont beat Oak Lawn in a matchup of South Suburban Conference leaders and lost to St. Ignatius by three, Lemont coach Rick Runaas likes where his team is at.

“I told the kids Saturday at St. Ignatius I feel like we are really close of maybe being the team we are capable of being,” Runaas said. “We looked at some video at practice of some of the little things. I’m thankful that I’m not in a position where we will never get there.”

Nothing wrong with Lemont’s 14-5 record, but it’s easy to envision a scenario where it’s much better. Four of Lemont’s five losses came by a total of 15 points.

“Our losses are to legit competition, by 3-4 points. My son was joking to me that it’s coach’s fault that we can’t figure out a way to win the close games,” Runaas said. “It’s a comfort level knowing how to perform in stressful situations.”

Speaking to comfort level, Runaas thinks Sularski is in a good place in his first year at Lemont.

“What has happened with Gabe is he’s starting to figure out what he needs to be with this team combined with what he needs to be as an individual,” Runaas said.

“He has personal goals which are really high and coupled with his desire to fit in with his teammates that is coming together for him since the Christmas tournament.”

Sularski scored 18 points in the win over Oak Lawn, as did Matas Gaidukevicius, a 6-foot-6 senior guard who missed six weeks of his junior year with a broken wrist but is healthy this season.

“He [Gaidukevicius] is a 6-5 perimeter guy, long, bouncy, really has a nice stroke and can get it going,” Runaas said. “He’s a guy that’s figured out how to be more consistent with his ‘A’ game and put together two or three of those games together.”