Naperville Central’s Grady Cooperkawa knows how it looks. Teams are ‘meant to beat us.’ But that’s changing.

Naperville Central senior Grady Cooperkawa aggressively drove the left baseline and scored on a layup.

The basket gave the host Redhawks a two-point lead against Oswego with 1:05 left in the fourth quarter on Tuesday.

“The guy was just coming out too fast at me,” Cooperkawa said. “It was wide open on the baseline, so I just went right past him.”

Oswego’s Max Niesman answered Cooperkawa’s basket with a go-ahead 3-pointer eight seconds later, and the Panthers held on for a 60-59 nonconference victory.

Even so, it is clear the Redhawks (7-18) are on the right path. They upset Naperville North on Friday and nearly upset the Panthers (15-14), who have won nine of their past 10 games.

“We’re playing a lot better,” Naperville Central coach Pete Kramer said. “It’s encouraging because our kids haven’t quit and they continue to try and improve.

“We’re just a few little things away from being pretty successful.”

The Redhawks have two solid senior leaders in point guard Simon Krugliakovas and Cooperkawa. Krugliakovas scored a game-high 21 points, including a contested layup with 2.9 seconds left to pull Naperville Central within a point. Cooperkawa added 15 points, including a trio of 3-pointers.

“I’m playing good right now, but we’re playing better as a team,” Cooperkawa said. “(Jack) First with the rebounds, Simon’s been taking care of the ball and then I think I’ve been shooting a little bit better.”

Cooperkawa made 5 of 10 shots against Oswego, including four straight at one point. He has always been known as a long-distance shooter, but his late-game drive to the basket was an indication he is diversifying his game.

“He does that a lot in practice,” Krugliakovas said. “He was doing that a little bit before the season, but he lost a little bit of his confidence. But I feel like he’s starting to get it back.”

Indeed, Cooperkawa has become more adept at shrugging off missed shots.

“The first three he shot I think he air-balled, and that got in his head a little bit,” Krugliakovas said. “But he came down a couple minutes later and just banged down two threes, so it was pretty good for him.

“We know he’s capable of scoring all the time.”

First is starting to show he can fill up the hoop too. The junior forward established a career high in points for the second straight game, finishing with 17 on 6-for-7 shooting.

Naperville Central’s other post player, junior Ross DeZur, added four points, a game-high seven rebounds and three assists.

“They’re learning, and they’re growing up,” Kramer said. “First and Ross are playing so much more consistent, and, obviously, Grady and Simon are two guys that have to score for us.”

Kramer has been pleased with the Redhawks’ resiliency. They led 15-10 after one quarter but fell behind 31-27 at halftime after Krugliakovas sat out the final 4:37 in foul trouble.

The Redhawks then made their first four shots of the third quarter. Cooperkawa had two of them on a layup and a 3-pointer.

“We came out of halftime and ran three or four of our sets and just got layups,” Kramer said. “We tried to do that early in the year, and we couldn’t do that.

“I’m proud of the way they’re competing. They’re leaving it all on the floor. We’ve talked about it all year, and now we’re starting to do it.”

With success comes confidence, and Cooperkawa said better days are ahead.

“That North win really let us know that we can compete with any team,” he said. “Coach just told us that nobody wants to play us.

“The team we’re going to play is meant to beat us, but we’ve been playing some good basketball, so we feel we can beat some teams.”

Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.