Fant, Lake Park put in the work
It was no accident that Erica Fant scored 22 points in Lake Park's 52-41 nonconference girls basketball victory at Glenbard West on Tuesday.
Like her scoring, the senior guard's 8 rebounds also were no fluke, though it was unusual that they all came off the offensive glass.
"She's usually a kind of grinder player that picks up messes, and because we have people like (leading scorer Emily Duckhorn), she really hasn't had the opportunity to do any scoring," Lake Park coach Brian Rupp said. "One thing about her is she has put in the last month and a half a ton of work on her scoring, particularly in her shooting. A complete revamp. It's paying off. The way she shot the ball tonight is proof of what she's been doing with the work. It's great."
Fant scored 10 points in the first quarter. She hit three 3-pointers for the game, two in that opening period.
"I feel like shots were falling the first quarter, and it just kind of took off from there," Fant said of her best scoring night. "It felt good."
Just as special to Rupp were those 8 offensive rebounds Fant grabbed.
"She gets all over the place, and it gets her into dirty areas too, and now she hits free throws," Rupp said. "It was good to see."
Glenbard West stayed right with the Lancers through the first half, trailing 29-26 at the break.
The third quarter was the Hilltoppers' downfall. Lake Park (11-10) held Glenbard West to just 4 points in the quarter, taking a double-digit lead for the first time when Fant converted a three-point play to make the score 39-28.
"We said before the game even started we need to win a game on defense every once in a while, and we haven't been," Rupp said. "We've been outscoring teams, but our defense has been nowhere. We had a goal of trying to hold them to 40, and 41 got us there, but we just had to hunker down."
"The second half we got outplayed a little bit," added Hilltoppers coach Karen Persinger. "They were more aggressive on the boards. We didn't talk on defense, and they seemed to want it a little bit more than we did in the second half. It was a little bit disappointing on our part."
Glenbard West's defense rose to the occasion in the fourth quarter, holding the Lancers scoreless until Duckhorn's free throw more than four minutes into the period. But the Hilltoppers couldn't get closer than 6 points.
"We kind of let it start to slip from us a little bit," Fant said. "But the biggest thing we're focusing on now is mentality. Finish the game."
Junior Lauren Daggett led the Hilltoppers (2-17) with 11 points and added 5 rebounds.
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