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Lake Forest survives Lake Zurich's best shot

Lake Zurich focused on its target and chucked Spears.

At Evan Boudreaux.

"Tim did a good job tonight," Lake Zurich guard Mike Travlos said of teammate Tim Spears.

In an attempt to at least slow down the Dartmouth-bound Boudreaux and Lake Forest's once-beaten boys basketball team, Lake Zurich started Spears, a 6-foot-1, broad-shouldered junior. Spears did his best, but Boudreaux was his usual tough self in the end, as visiting Lake Forest pulled out a 52-49 victory in a North Suburban Lake Division thriller Friday night.

Boudreaux finished with game bests of 20 points and 14 rebounds, as Lake Forest improved to 18-1 and 6-1 in the NSC Lake.

"That's probably his lowest (point total) against us since his freshman year," coach Billy Pitcher said after his Bears fell to 17-5 and 3-4 with their second loss to the Scouts this season.

"He's killed us every year we've played them," Travlos said of Boudreaux. "We thought if we could contain him, that would give us the best shot at winning the game."

Lake Zurich's game plan to try to frustrate Boudreaux looked like it might work, after Boudreaux was whistled for an offensive foul for pushing Travlos early in the fourth quarter. Lake Zurich, which trailed by as many as 16 points late in the first half, had just taken a 44-43 lead on a pair of free throws by Jack O'Neill.

"It's been a long week for me," said Boudreaux, who rolled his left ankle against Lakes earlier in the week. "(The ankle) is getting a lot better and it should be 100 percent by next week. I just had to adjust to playing on it and playing with it. I give my teammates a lot of credit. They really stepped up big, in the first half especially, and built a big lead."

Lake Forest called a timeout after Boudreaux's offensive foul and responded. Boudreaux's putback gave the lead back to Lake Forest, and Lake Zurich never caught up again. Boudreaux sank 4 of 6 free throws in the final 41 seconds, but the Scouts' win wasn't secured until Travlos' half-court shot at the buzzer hit the back iron and stayed out of the basket.

"We just tried to ignore the refs and not pay attention to what (Lake Zurich) was trying to do," Boudreaux said. "We realized that we had been executing all game and had been doing our stuff, and it had been working. We got away from it. Toward the end of the game, we started running (the offense) again and started scoring."

Spears, who's often been the Bears' first player off the bench this season, got starts in Lake Zurich's MLK tournament when Nick Meyer was attending a volleyball tourney.

"His defense is so good," Pitcher said of Spears. "We thought if we bring him in off the bench, it might look like we're trying to bring a goon in or something because of the way he's built and the way he plays."

O'Neill (team-high 15 points, 3 steals) sank the first of his three 3-pointers with 2:34 left in the opening quarter to tie the score at 9-9. But Lake Forest's Noah Karras (16 points, four 3-pointers) answered with a 3. Travlos then missed a breakaway dunk, and Lake Forest started pouring it on.

"That hurt a little bit," Travlos said of his missed dunk. "But it is what it is."

Boudreaux fed Steve Vogrich for a layup, Karras drained his third 3 of the quarter, Boudreaux scored on a putback and when sophomore Justin McMahon beat the buzzer with a half-court shot, Lake Forest was up 22-9.

"They had that (13-0) run to close the first quarter, and that was the difference in the game," Pitcher said.

Lake Forest led 32-16 with less than two minutes left in the second quarter and went into halftime up 34-21. But Lake Zurich chipped away, and O'Neill's 3 in the closing seconds of the third pulled the hosts within 43-39.

After the Bears grabbed their brief lead early in the fourth, Scouts coach Phil LaScala talked to his players about keeping their composure and taking good shots.

Lake Forest also buckled down at the defensive end. When Travlos hit a 3-pointer to get Lake Zurich within 51-49 with five seconds to go, it was just his third field goal. Travlos finished with a season-low 8 points. Will McClaughry had 13 points and 6 rebounds for the Bears, while Meyer added 9 points (two 3s) coming off the bench.

"Jack (Traynor) and Steve (Vogrich) did a good job on (Travlos)," LaScala said. "We had two different types of guys guarding him: one physical guy (Traynor) and one (Vogrich) with a lot of length. When you have those kind of guys defending, it makes it tough. (Travlos) is a really nice player."

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