NILES, Illinois — The Knights varsity basketball team finished off the opening weekend of the 2023-24 season with a bang Saturday night, capping off a 4-0 start and capturing the Battle at the Ridge Thanksgiving tournament championship with a thrilling 52-49 win over Vernon Hills.

Led by Javi Christoffel '24 (18 points) and Bo Arnold '25 (11 points), the Knights finished off the Cougars in dramatic fashion. In a back and forth game, Northridge was able to build a double-digit lead in the second half, highlighted by a big and-one from Arnold. To Vernon Hills' credit, the Cougars did not go down easy, fighting their way back to within three points late in the 4th quarter. Ultimately, an Evan Kataoka '25 trip to the free throw line with 11.6 seconds left sealed the deal for the Knights, where he went 1/2 to give the maroon and gold a five point lead and their first Battle at the Ridge title since 2018.

Head coach Will Rey was proud of his squad's effort and how quickly they came together as a team.

"I thought our team played really hard the entire tournament — we also played very well together. We feel this team can be very good in the open court so we're trying to maximize that at every opportunity," Rey said. "As we always do at Northridge, we look to our two great seniors — Javi Christoffel and TJ Gorman. They have the experience and set the tone. We also have two juniors — Evan Kataoka and Bo Arnold — who played significant minutes as sophomores last year. Like our seniors, they have gone through a varsity season already and understand very well the culture of our program."

Still, Rey was quick to point out that this title does not mean they are a finished product.

"I'm happy for our players because they earned the victories during this tournament, but the reality is that we have a lot of work to do to improve, both offensively and defensively. We are far from being a finished product — we certainly haven't arrived yet as a team."

One of those seniors, Javi Christoffel, agreed with his coach.

"The biggest factor was definitely our team effort. We consistently out hustled the other teams which led to our success. We focused on all the intangibles," Christoffel said. "Our goals are to make Northridge the best possible environment to play basketball and to compete for championships."

TJ Gorman agreed.

"Definitely our teams grit and work ethic (was the reason why we won). Any time we got knocked down we would get up and keep fighting like nothing happened," the senior said. "One example is Evan Kataoka. He got in a little foul trouble and didn't let that bother him and ended with 6 charges. That caused our whole team to work harder."

Before the Knights could reach the championship, there were three games to kick off the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

"The Dungeon" was rocking Tuesday evening as the Knights began the season with an opening night tilt against Wheeling. Feeding off the energy from a capacity crowd — which included over 100 Northridge alums — the Knights broke away from the Wildcats in the second half en route to a 62-44 win. Christoffel led the way with 16 points to go along with a 12-point effort from Jacob Klatt '25.

Wednesday brought more dominance from the Knights, who led from the opening tip in an excellent effort over South Shore, 82-32. TJ Gorman was big on the offensive end, pouring in 26 points. The effort was complemented by 17 points from junior Nelson Goodrich.

Following the Thanksgiving holiday, the Knights returned without having missed a beat, collecting their third consecutive win with a 67-30 victory over Schurz. Once again, Gorman led the way on the offensive end with 17 points. Familiar faces Javi Christoffel and Nelson Goodrich each contributed with 14 and 13 points, respectively.

After a successful opening tournament, the Knights can celebrate for now while knowing there is still a lot of work to be done before the season is over.

As Gorman put it: "We as a team have big goals for this season and in order to achieve them we have to stay on an incline plane of improvement. We are only getting started."

Next up for the Knights is an ISL tilt with Francis Parker, as Northridge welcomes the Colonels to "The Dungeon" for the conference opener on Dec. 1 at 6:00pm.