CAROL STREAM – St. Charles North needed to put on its big boy pants and find its big guy inside on Saturday night.

Once it did that it was able to put away Glenbard North, beating the Panthers 45-34 in a DuKane Conference game in Carol Stream.

“I think we kind of came out not so strong and kind of were walking through the motions of the game,” North Stars junior guard Luke Scheffers said. “Then we kind of put on our big boy pants and started playing.”

Glenbard North (3-12, 0-5) didn’t score until Jordan McQuarter hit a jumper with 57 seconds left in the first quarter, but the North Stars didn’t really take advantage, leading just 8-2 entering the second quarter.

“We’ve looked better against zone than we did today,” North Stars coach Tom Poulin said. “They play hard and they work for deflections, but we were also sloppy with the ball, making poor decisions with the ball and trying to do the right things but at the wrong time. I thought we played hard, but we made a lot of mistakes so it’s good to get out of here with a conference win.”

St. Charles North (6-8,1-3) was able to get the ball inside frequently to 6-foot-9 center Connor Linke in the second half. The big guy scored 14 of his game-high 16 points after halftime. He also snagged 11 rebounds.

“They kind of lost me a bit in the second half,” Linke said. “We were trying to take advantage of our height advantage so were kind of just looking inside and our guards did a nice job of feeding it down there.”

Poulin would’ve liked to have seen it happen much sooner.

“I felt there were opportunities in the first half where we missed finding him, but he also needs to work to put himself in some seals and some positioning so that we can get him,” Poulin said. “We talked about that at halftime, about looking for those, not forcing anything and I thought we did a nice job of changing sides and sharing the ball, and when he was open, finding him.”

Linke’s two free throws gave the North Stars their first double-digit lead at 26-16 with 1:55 left in the third quarter.

The Panthers wouldn’t get any closer than 38-30 with 2:15 remaining after Jerry Abushanab’s three-pointer.

“I thought both teams played well defensively,” Poulin said. “I thought it was an ugly basketball game. We had a lot of days off and there was maybe a little bit of rust since our last game at Pontiac.”

Lucas Heflen added 13 points while the St. Charles North bench contributed 12 points and 17 rebounds.

“Our depth showed today and came in and impacted the game in the second half to help us build a bigger lead,” Poulin said. “We were never comfortable because [Glenbard North] coach [Joe] Larson does a great job of having his guys play harder than yours; they always do.”

After some success at Pontiac and this victory, the North Stars have some confidence heading into the remainder of the season.

“I just think we’ve kind of learned who we can be,” Scheffers said. “We kind of saw what we can do against Danville. We can play with the best of the best, but we’ve also seen some games where we haven’t played too well. So we’ve got to keep playing and executing the way we know we can and that’s going to help us be successful.”

The North Stars return to action with Batavia and Wheaton Warrenville South back-to-back on Jan. 11-12.