Defense defines conference victory for Lake Park

Lake Park coach Brian Rupp wanted to see his team win a game with defense.

Holding Naperville North to 20 percent shooting fit neatly into that category.

The Lancers (12-10, 1-3) won for the second time this season at Naperville North - 36-31 Thursday - and this time it counted in the DuPage Valley Conference standings.

"I'm very happy with the win," said Rupp, whose team also beat the Huskies (10-8, 2-3) in December in the Naperville North/Benet Holiday Tournament. "I'm glad that we found a different way to win than scoring 60 points. I mean, we played great defense today."

"He's just always been saying if our shots aren't falling then that's OK because we can always win on defense," said Lancers junior Sarah Cillick, whom Rupp credited for leading the defensive effort. "Defense wins games. Tonight I guess we all stepped up. We communicated very well tonight so that was good on defense."

Leading 17-16 at halftime, the Lancers' lead peaked at 8 points to start the fourth quarter on Emily Duckhorn's layup.

"What I love about it is (the Huskies) are a really good team," Rupp said. "Going into the season I kind of targeted them as one of the best teams in the DVC. It's good that our girls get up for it. Hopefully this goes into the rest of our DVC play, because we feel like we're a pretty good team in the DVC."

"It's just fun to play them, you know?" Cillick said.

Naperville North didn't enjoy it as much, in large part because its recent shooting slump continued despite devoting plenty of practice time to the art of shooting.

"I think we are going the wrong way, but our defense is improving," Huskies coach Jason Dycus said. "Our defense was great tonight, and I think Lake Park's a very good team."

The Huskies trimmed the Lancers' lead to 2 on Caleigh Corbett's free throw with 1:03 to play, but they still couldn't get shots to drop, and it didn't help when Lake Park got a few offensive rebounds off free throws.

Huskies junior Katie Cores led all scorers with 11 points, adding 9 rebounds. Cece Pope and Kayla Sharples each had 8 points, and Pope grabbed 16 rebounds.

Freshman Carson Vance led the Lancers with 8 points off the bench.

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