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Lake Forest tops Libertyville in 2OTs

Even the most fervent Lake Forest fan couldn't have envisioned a realistic way for the Scouts to come back from their deficit at Libertyville on Friday night.

The Scouts trailed the Wildcats by 23 points with 4:45 to go in the third quarter, with all signs pointing towards a Libertyville boys basketball win. But whether or not the faithful believed, the Scout players certainly were not ready to concede.

Lake Forest whittled the lead to under double figures by the end of the third quarter and had the ball with a chance to tie in the final seconds. Then senior Lorenzo Edwards shot a 3-pointer that hit every bit of the rim before falling through to force overtime.

When Lake Forest battled back to force a second overtime, the Scouts had the Wildcats right where they wanted them. Just :09 into the second overtime, Edwards hit a short jumper to give the Scouts their first lead - for good.

Edwards finished with 26 points and 16 boards as he and the Scouts took a wild one from the Wildcats 78-73 in double overtime.

"I always thought that we could come back, to be completely honest," Edwards said. "We needed our defense to kick in and when we changed up some things and made a couple of buckets in a row, we started to feel it."

Libertyville (12-9, 3-5), which was led by Drew Peterson's 24 points, opened up a 47-24 advantage with a 12-1 run.

"At that point were sharing the ball, making the extra pass and getting to the basket," Peterson said.

Over the next three minutes, the Scouts were the team that couldn't miss. Lake Forest (12-7, 5-3) closed the quarter by scoring the final 11 points from players that usually aren't counted on for their scoring.

Brian Stickler had 4 of his 15 points during the spurt, and junior guard Justin McMahon ignited an attack-the-basket mentality with 6 of his 18 points as the Scouts got the margin down to 49-40 after 3 quarters.

"When we got it down to 9 there I felt like we had the momentum - for a bit," said Lake Forest coach Phil LaScala. "(Libertyville) still got it back to double digits, but I still felt like if we could get stops we could come back."

The Wildcats built the lead back to 60-53 with 3:13 left, yet had chances to secure the game in the final minutes. But the free throw line was not kind to the home team. Libertyville hit just 2 of 11 from the line in the final quarter and extra sessions.

"Lake Forest was going to make a run," said Libertyville coach Brent Mork. "They are a good team and it came down to them making shots, getting to loose balls, and us not making free throws."

With each possession, the once insurmountable Wildcat lead was withering away.

"It just seemed like we panicked," Peterson said. "We weren't sharing the ball - we were playing selfish basketball."

Even with the frantic comeback, Lake Forest still never had tied or taken the lead until Edwards' shot that forced overtime.

"Coach told us once we were in overtime that we had worked too hard to come back and not win this," McMahon said.

"We have had trouble closing out games like this," Mork said. "Second-chance opportunities and our fouling got them back in the game. We didn't stop playing hard, but you have to hit free throws and close out quarters and we didn't do that tonight."

Will Hannekamp hit for 10 points for the Scouts.

Ben Kimpler scored 16 points before fouling out for Libertyville, and Jabari Quigley (13 points) and Paul Steinhaus (11 points) were in double figures for the Wildcats.

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