Libertyville looms large, handles Lake Zurich

With three 6-footers in its revamped starting lineup, Libertyville boasts one of the tallest girls basketball teams in the North Suburban Conference.

On Saturday, the Wildcats took advantage of their height advantage against host Lake Zurich and pulled away for a 34-26 NSC Lake Division victory.

"They have nice height," Lake Zurich coach Chris Bennett said of Libertyville. "And it caused us trouble."

Libertyville had lost three games in a row when head coach Greg Pedersen tinkered with his starting lineup to include all three of his six-footers. Now, 6-foot-2 senior center Becky Deichl has two partners in crime at her side in 6-foot sophomores Claire Keefe and Caroline Frea.

The Wildcats (13-7, 6-2 NSC Lake) have won two straight games now with their tall trio.

"We definitely try to establish our posts inside," said Deichl, who scored a game-high 12 points. "I thought we all played well together. Hopefully, we can keep that up."

Frea added 10 points for Libertyville while Keefe had just 1 point but 7 rebounds.

"We wanted to take advantage of our size," Pedersen said. "This lineup gives us really good frontline size and all three of them can score and they pass the ball really well, and it worked out really well for us. It helps."

It helped Libertyville's bigs that sophomore guard Riley Weis came alive from 3-point range. As Lake Zurich looked to pack the paint to take away the Wildcats' post play, Weis hit three 3-pointers. She finished with 9 points.

"That was huge," Pedersen said. "We challenged Riley to step it up, and she did. She knocks those down in practice with people in her face. She really hadn't hit for a few games, but we wanted to go back to her and tonight she just had that stroke down."

Libertyville also had its defensive game plan down just so.

The Wildcats were intent on making life as difficult as possible for Lake Zurich leading scorer Elly Daleske. She wound up with 11 points and was the Bears' only double-figure scorer. But the senior forward had to work hard for every look, every touch.

"They just tried to take me out of the game and they did a great job of it," said Daleske, who averages about 15 points per game. "It was very hard for me to get the ball. I just tried to keep getting open but they always put two to three players on me. They executed that really well because it was tough to get the ball."

In a slow-paced game, Libertyville held Lake Zurich (9-12, 4-5 Lake) scoreless for the first six minutes and took an 8-3 lead into the second quarter and a 15-9 lead into halftime.

The Wildcats took firm control by out-scoring Lake Zurich 13-7 in the third quarter.

"They did a great job of taking away Elly and we struggled to find a second option," Bennett said. "We put her everywhere and just couldn't get her the ball. We thought our defense was working, but we just couldn't get back in the game (offensively)."

Libertyville was up 34-19 with 1:05 remaining and Lake Zurich made it interesting by putting on a full court press that caused some trouble. The Bears scored the final 7 points of the game off of turnovers from its press.