Woodstock guard JJ Stokes and Woodstock North forward AJ Cohen, buddies since the first grade, shared a postgame embrace in Shipley Gymnasium and then split off in different directions.

A smiling Stokes hopped and then sprinted merrily to the Blue Streaks’ locker room to celebrate with his teammates.

Cohen stopped to visit with friends. He, too, was happy. Happy for his friend. Happy for the several other Woodstock players who he’s known for years.

Mind you, Woodstock had just beaten visiting Woodstock North 47-28 in front of a packed and loud crowd to win the Kishwaukee River Conference championship. The game marked the KRC finale for both District 200 teams.

“As long as Woodstock [Woodstock High School or Woodstock North High School] is succeeding, that’s all that really matters to me,” Cohen said. “A lot of people disagree with me on that, but I just like to see my buddies do well. I can’t wait for the regional [next week] because I seriously think that they’re going to make a pretty solid run.”

Stokes and his teammates showed they’re ready for the postseason by putting together an impressive performance against a Thunder team that stunned Richmond-Burton last week and had been playing its best basketball in the past month after starting the season 0-14.

Sophomore guard Rian Hahn-Clifton scored a team-high 12 points on four 3-pointers for Woodstock (21-9, 12-2), which won its last and only conference championship in 1984.

“When we found that out Friday, we were all shocked,” Hahn-Clifton said. “A couple of guys and I went to breakfast at IHOP, and we were talking about it. We had Dan Hill [Woodstock’s all-time leading scorer who graduated in 1987] come talk to us [in late January], and we were amazed that he didn’t win a conference title.”

Max Beard had nine points, including a pull-up 3-pointer to beat the halftime buzzer and give the Streaks a 24-15 lead. Stokes (eight points, 14 rebounds) and Liam Laidig (eight points, 12 rebounds) almost had double-doubles, while high-flying sophomore guard Marc Thomas grabbed seven boards.

“I’m just really happy for the kids,” Woodstock coach Ryan Starnes said after his team improved to 13-1 at home. “The community’s here, it’s a great place for the kids, and our student section is awesome. They lift our kids up. Our record at home is crazy. We play hard. We compete. Lots of former players were here. The amount of text messages I got today from former players saying, ‘Good luck,’ was incredible.”

The win was Woodstock’s sixth in a row and 10th in its past 11 games, following five losses in six games. Included in the 1-5 stretch was a two-point loss at Plano, which trailed by eight points with a minute to go and won on a buzzer-beater.

“That locker room was in shock,” Hahn-Clifton said. “We played so well at the start of the year, and then we were like, ‘What are we going to do? We got to figure this out.’ We went to eat with each other, and we just got really connected. We’re on a great run right now.”

Woodstock North (4-23, 4-10), which didn’t get its first win under first-year coach Tim Paddock until Jan. 13, had won three of its past seven games.

“What turned it around was we really started taking it serious at practice,” said Cohn, who hit a first-quarter 3-pointer and blocked two shots. “We really started going at each other, and I can credit that to Tim Paddock. He just told us, ‘If we want to win games, we got to go hard at practice,’ and we weren’t going hard enough at practice.”

Woodstock North, which was led by junior guard Ethan Richardson’s 12 points (two 3-pointers), trailed only 27-22 midway through the third quarter. But Hahn-Clifton fed Beard for an alley-oop layup to start a 6-0 run, which also included a baby hook from Laidig.

Up 35-24 after the third, the Streaks held the Thunder scoreless in the fourth until Richardson scored with less than a minute left.

“It wasn’t the cleanest or most prettiest game, but you could tell that our team fought very hard to get this win,” said Stokes, who grabbed nine offensive rebounds.

Woodstock won despite shooting 19 of 58 (33%) from the floor. It was the eighth time the Streaks held an opponent to fewer than 40 points.

“You win with defense. You win with rebounding,” Starnes said. “We had 15 offensive rebounds at halftime. We couldn’t have shot it any worse, but we were still up nine, and the kids were getting offensive rebounds. You got to continue to crash the glass.”