It was a perfect Wednesday night for Jon Clayton. Well, almost.

With Wheaton North up by double digits with a minute remaining against St. Charles North, the junior, who hadn’t missed a shot all night, went to the free throw line to shoot two more free throws.

The first? A swish. The second? Bounced off the rim and onto the floor, his only miss of the night.

“I was down in the moment, but you can never be perfect,” Clayton said. “You’ve just got to be as good as you can on the floor every night.”

It was the only blemish on the night for Clayton, who put up a season-high 18 points to lead the sixth-seeded Falcons to a 64-51 victory over the 10th-seeded North Stars in a Class 4A St. Charles North Regional semifinal.

“It’s just a thing where big-time players make big-time plays in big-time games,” Falcons coach David Eaton said. “We’ve been sort of waiting for him to do that for us. He knows he can do it, so it was nice to see him step up for us.”

The Falcons (18-11) will face third-seeded Glenbard North, which won its regional semifinal over St. Charles East 73-49, in the regional title game at 6 p.m. Friday.

The teams split the season series in DuKane Conference play with the Panthers winning the first 53-51 and the Falcons closing out the regular season with a 63-60 victory.

“Both matchups have been really close, and they’re a really good team,” Eaton said. “They’re loaded, and they’re a well-balanced team, and we’re excited to get another shot at them.”

The Falcons started Wednesday’s game needing to make an early adjustment to the North Stars’ defensive scheme of putting a guy solely on senior guard Henry Schlickman (13 points), eliminating a threat from beyond the 3-point arc.

But according to Clayton, it was a situation for which the Falcons were fully prepared. And it showed, with the junior finishing with 11 points in the first half to give them a 38-24 lead into the break.

“I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Schlickman, there were a lot of people flowing his way and it opened up more than a few lanes to the basket,” Clayton said. “With how talented of a player he is and how well he can shoot, it can open up our offense so much.”

It also opened up the floor for junior Ben Gillmar, who scored a career-high 28 points in a 58-49 victory over the North Stars on Jan. 29. He matched Clayton on the night with 18 points and added three steals.

“It was just a really great team effort. We knew what we had to do,” Gillmar said. “We got the ball in the paint and drew the ball in transition.”

It was that opening up in the paint that the North Stars (12-19) could not get ahold of defensively. While the North Stars held the Falcons to only two 3-pointers on 11 attempts, they allowed 24 shots to fall from inside of the arc on 32 attempts.

“This game was about playing defense and guarding, and we just didn’t tie it together and weren’t locked in there defensively,” North Stars coach Tom Poulin said. “We just couldn’t get stops as much as we needed to. We’ve played better defensively, and it’s disappointing to not play your best on a stage like this. But we played hard right to the end.”

The North Stars were led by senior Jake Love, who finished with a team-high 18 points. Besnik Memedowski finished with 10 points and Braden Harms added eight assists.

“Each one of those seniors has a unique story about their growth, and at the end of the day that’s what all of this is about,” Poulin said. “Those are the wins. Those seniors have grown and developed each in their own way and have all overcome a lot, so I’m very proud of them, and I’ll miss working with them more than anyone can imagine.”

https://www.shawlocal.com/my-suburban-life/2026/02/26/jon-clayton-ben-gillmar-spearhead-wheaton-norths-win-over-st-charles-north-to-open-playoffs/