North Lawndale hands Lake Zurich its first loss
Win or lose, good teams always look for ways to improve.
Such as Lake Zurich, which took the short end of a 64-54 decision to Chicago's North Lawndale College Prep in the Grant Thanksgiving tournament on Friday evening. But the Bears took away plenty of positives.
“I guess we're not going undefeated this year,” Lake Zurich coach Billy Pitcher said with a grin. “But I was really pleased with our effort tonight. North Lawndale is a high quality team. They made shots we had trouble defending, and they hit the offensive boards.”
Pitcher's crew fell to 3-1 overall and in the tournament, and pretty much sewed up second-place in the six-team round-robin event. Meanwhile, North Lawndale clinched the title by going 4-0 to this point with one game left on Saturday night.
Rebounding and second-chance points were two key factors that helped the Phoenix build a 30-22 lead at halftime.
But Lake Zurich's got too much firepower and wasn't about to go anywhere.
The Bears went on a little 10-6 spree to open the third quarter and drew to within 36-32 with 4:50 left in the frame.
Senior guard Nick Penny hit a layup and drained a 3-pointer during the run.
But that's where the Bears hit a little speed bump.
“We got to within 4 points on a few of different occasions in the second half, but then we had 3 crucial turnovers right after that,” said Penny, who pumped in a game-high 18 points before fouling out with 39 seconds remaining in the contest. “We kept grinding, though, and we were finally starting to play with them.”
Unfortunately, that was as close as Lake Zurich would get because North Lawndale converted those crucial turnovers into points on the other end.
The final time the Bears got to within 4 points of the lead was following a trey by Penny that made it 49-45 with 6:50 left in regulation.
However, a traveling call helped keep the momentum with the Phoenix, who took advantage by scoring 6 unanswered points to put the game out of reach at 56-45 with 2:20 left.
“We just couldn't get over the hump,” said Pitcher. “Those turnovers we're huge down the stretch. But we'll learn from this. As long as we keep getting better and better every day.”
With the game pretty much in the bag, North Lawndale put an exclamation point on things by converting on 4-of-4 free throws in the final minute.
Penny echoed his coach's sentiments.
“As a team, I know we can be so much better,” he said. “They are a really good team. But we'll learn from this and move on,” he said.
Senior forward Nick Meyer and junior guard Michael Bens joined Penny in scoring in double figures finishing with 12 and 11 points, respectively.