Boys basketball: Glenbard North keeps record spotless

ST. CHARLES – Glenbard North’s basketball team continued its great start to the season, improving to 8-0 overall with a 52-38 DuKane Conference triumph over host St. Charles East Tuesday night.

Once again, the Panthers enjoyed a fast start from the opening tip, racing to a 12-3 lead through the first 6 ½ minutes.

Senior forward JJ Hernandez scored nine of his game-high 18 points during the first-quarter run.

“We started off the game strong,” said Hernandez, who added six rebounds, three steals and a pair of assists. “Our coach (Kevin Tonn) talks about that all the time – to come out and punch them in the mouth first. That’s why we’ve been so successful so far.”

With their fourth consecutive DuKane Conference win, the Panthers have already matched their entire victory total from a year ago in conference play.

“We were pretty young last year so the year of experience gained last year – it has served us well so far,” said Panthers coach Kevin Tonn. “Now, we have to continue to get better.”

After the Saints (3-6, 0-4) trimmed the deficit to 13-9 early in the second quarter on a runner from junior Gavin Szerlong, the Panthers limited the home team to just 2 more points for the remaining 7 minutes of the first half while building a 22-11 lead at the intermission.

That lead swelled to 30-13 following a steal and 2-handed slam dunk by Hernandez midway through the third quarter. Glenbard North led by as many as 20 points at 36-16 with 1:11 remaining in the third stanza.

“I think we did a nice job on the defensive end – being disruptive on the perimeter and at the rim,” said Tonn, whose team forced 15 of the Saints’ 18 turnovers through the first 3 quarters. “We got two big charges, too.

“We played a complete game defensively.”

Hernandez connected on 8 of 14 field-goal attempts, knocking down a pair of 3-pointers, while sophomore Josh Abushanab and senior Jalen Crues added 10 and 9 points, respectively.

“He has had a nice start to the season,” Tonn said of Hernandez, “but again, you look at our scoring and we had contributions from a lot of guys.”

The Panthers host Lake Park Friday night in an early season battle between the DuKane Conference leaders.

“There’s some things to clean up,” said Hernandez. “These next two practices are big. The harder we go in practice - I think we’ll be alright.”

It marked the Panthers’ second win over the Saints in 11 days, following their 61-50 victory on Dec. 1 in Carol Stream.

This time, however, the Saints were without a pair of injured starters – Jacob Vrankovich and Brad Monkemeyer.

“It is tough, but it’s an opportunity to give those other guys a look,” said Saints coach Rob Klemm. “They’ve been working hard every day, and a lot of them stepped up.

“We made a strong push there early in the fourth quarter. We got it down to 11 (42-31 with 4:05 left) but they came down and (Ryan Bledsoe-Taylor) hit a 3 – that really hurt.”

Jake Greenspan led the Saints with 10 points, while Szerlong added eight.

“I’m proud of the effort but we want to see their effort start to be rewarded,” said Klemm.