LePage, Wauconda stand tall against Round Lake

The girls nicknamed him “Legs.”

“I heard it in the hallway one day,” Wauconda senior Greg LePage said. “I was like, ‘All right, I'll keep it.' ”

Friday night, the legs of “Legs” might have been shaking when he stepped to the foul line with five seconds left in the fourth quarter of a tie basketball game against visiting Round Lake. A backup guard, LePage missed the first toss. But he swished the second, and Wauconda pulled out a 57-56 win in a North Suburban Prairie Division thriller.

Wauconda improved to 5-7 and 2-2 in the division, while Round Lake fell to 3-11 and 0-4.

“I just wanted to make it exciting,” joked LePage, who came off the bench to sink a first-quarter 3-pointer and finished with 4 points.

LePage's heroics were nearly trumped by Round Lake's Michael Green, whose one-handed, off-balance tip of a desperation 3-pointer at the buzzer banked wide.

“I should have grabbed it with two hands,” said Green, who was being boxed out on the play.

Green, who poured in a game-high 25 points, had floated in a 13-footer to give the Panthers a 56-54 lead with 1:02 left in the fourth. But Wauconda pulled even when Jarod Stonis hit 2 free throws with 8.8 seconds left. Round Lake then muffed the inbounds pass. A hustling LePage came up with the steal and was fouled attempting a layup.

“He comes to practice every day to work,” Wauconda coach Scott Luetschwager said. “Most games he doesn't see the fruits of his labor, but he's one of those kids who works hard every single day. It doesn't matter what's going on around him.”

Green had scored 19 points in the first half in helping the Panthers take a 33-31 lead into the break. The 6-foot-4 senior guard made three 3-pointers and several other tough shots.

“Some of those, we were in his face,” Luetschwager said. “He had no business taking a shot on a couple of them. At that point, you just got to tip your cap to him.”

Green credited Wauconda for its defense on him in the second half, as he scored just 6 points on 3-of-9 shooting. The Bulldogs sent help when Green touched the ball on the perimeter.

“They tried to put a little bit of a tag on me every time I would get the ball,” said Green, who also had 8 rebounds and 3 blocked shots.

The junior duo of Stonis and Kyle Drobnik led Wauconda with 16 points apiece. Drobnik, who also grabbed 7 rebounds, had a pair of energizing tip-ins in the fourth quarter. Another backup guard, Alex Reyes, added 9 points on three 3-pointers for the Bulldogs.

Dallas Soto and Jordan Keith added 12 and 9 points, respectively, for Round Lake, which held either a one- or two-point lead after each of the first three quarters. The Panthers used a 6-0 run down the stretch to take their two-point advantage.

“It's tough to be up and then give it up,” Round Lake coach Jeremy Fisher said. “We turn the ball over underneath our own hoop and they tie the game. It was just a bad situation for us. It didn't go our way.”

It was Wauconda's second hard-fought win over Round Lake in less than three weeks (Marengo tournament). The teams play each other for a third time on Feb. 6 at Round Lake.

“It was awesome,” LePage said of the victory. “Now we got momentum going to Grant (Tuesday). It'll be hostile, but hopefully we get the ‘W' there.”