In a sea of purple to raise awareness for District 203’s (Be)3 anti-bullying campaign, Central boys’ basketball team took down rival Naperville North on Friday by a score of 68-60 at Central’s gymnasium.
Senior Nicky Lopez explained the goals in which the purple-out wished to achieve.
“We wanted to show that bullying is a problem in all schools whether people mean to be bullying or not,” said Lopez. “The purple-out was to show that Naperville Central and Naperville North are against bullying and harassment. Naperville came together last night in Central and it was really a great thing to see.”
Although the two schools were brought together to fight a great cause, this did not take away from the intensity of the rivalry game. Junior Nick Czarnowski expressed the importance of this win.
“Last night was an experience that the team will never forget,” said Czarnowski. “As a team, we all really took it to Naperville North. We were on a mission to prove that we were the better team and that’s what we did.”
Central was led last night by top scorer Czarnowski with 21 points. The 6-foot-9 center dominated, grabbing a game-high 11 rebounds along with a dunk in the fourth quarter, erupting the stadium. Lopez had 20 points and two steals and junior Ryan Antony had 18 points and two steals as well.
“We shared the ball last night really well and got into a rhythm offensively,” said Antony. “Czar played like a man inside which was huge and Lopez was hitting his shots as usual.”
Despite the win, Central’s performance did not come without flaws. Defensively, they allowed senior Derek Westman to 20 points and freshman Jelani McClain Jr. to 12 points. The freshman McClain also had five steals in the game leading to many fast break points for North.
“We needed to clean up our weak side defense and front the post,” said Lopez. “They got some second chance points, but we went into half time and talked it over and fixed it for the second half.”
Central has improved their record to 11-5 overall and 4-2 in the Dupage Valley Conference. North fell to 11-6 overall and 3-3 in DVC play.
“North did feel like a threat,” said Antony. “They are a good and scrappy team. You can’t count anyone out in a DVC game and especially in the crosstown rivalry game. In a packed gym like that, anything can happen. We were aware of that, so we brought it.”
