Tom Welch is no stranger to being isolated while playing a sport.
That came in handy Friday night.
A 6-foot-6 junior guard/forward, Welch scored 12 of his game-high 19 points in the second half as the Huskies puled out a 50-45 DuPage Valley victory over Metea Valley.
Welch, who’s also a goalkeeper in soccer, knows what it’s like to be locked in.
“I feel like I can score the ball very well for our team,” he said. “I had to step up. I only had seven in the first half or whatever it was. I just knew I had to step my game up.”
With senior forward Chris Johnson sidelined for a second straight game, the Huskies (16-2, 7-1) were still figuring out a new normal.
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The more Welch forced the issue, the better.
“We’ve been on Tom to be more aggressive,” Naperville North coach Jeff Powers said. “Second half, he finally started doing some things offensively that we know he can do.
“Right now, his nature is not to be so aggressive. But we keep telling him, ‘When you get the ball, you have to do something with it. Go to the hole. Make something happen.’ And he did a great job.”
Six players scored the first six baskets for Metea (9-10, 4-6), which trailed only 22-19 at halftime.
Five straight points from junior guard Ethan Helwig to open up the third quarter gave the Mustangs their one and only lead at 24-22. Helwig finished with a team-high 15 points.
From there, the Huskies countered with a 21-9 spurt to secure their first double-digit lead at 43-33 with 3:09 left in the fourth.
Welch scored 10 points during that pivotal stretch as the Huskies rebounded from a 39-36 loss at Wheaton Warrenville South.
“When I’m playing well, I think it benefits the whole team,” Welch said.
The Huskies shot 17-for-20 from the free-throw line to help them close out the Mustangs. They converted their first 14 free throws.
“I look at that Naperville North team,” Metea coach Matt Walpole said. “I told my guys, ‘They’re up at the top of our conference for a reason.’ We battled them and battled them and battled them to the best of our ability.
“I thought we had some clean looks when the game was kind of hanging in the balance. Holden (Rank) had one, Ethan had one, Brad (Hartje) had one … just didn’t go down. But we had the looks that we wanted, and then it was just a free-throw shooting contest.”
Blake Baumgartner is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.