Lake Zurich lets defense carry the day

With as close as the boys basketball race in the North Suburban Conference's Lake Division has been, just winning is good enough.

Style points simply don't count.

For Lake Zurich, which finds itself just a game back of first-place Stevenson in the standings, style was not central to the 53 points the Bears scored Saturday night during an NSC Lake road contest at Mundelein.

But thanks to a stingy defense and a proficient-enough offense, the Bears handled the Mustangs 53-33 setting up a first-place Lake showdown with Stevenson at Lake Zurich on Tuesday night.

"I'm disappointed in the way we played tonight," said Lake Zurich coach Billy Pitcher. "I was much happier in our loss at Batavia last week than I was in this win tonight, in terms of how we played. We have to be better than this. We cannot turn it on and turn it off like that and expect to be successful."

While the offense for Lake Zurich (18-7, 6-3) struggled at times, the defense, led by senior Nick Meyer, didn't rest.

Meyer, who didn't score for only the second time this season, was tasked with guarding Mundelein scoring leading Tommy Marcotte. Meyer limited Marcotte to his second-lowest point total of the season as he finished 1-for-9 from the field with 5 points.

"We have a lot of scorers on this team, so if I can stop the other team's best scorer it really gives us the best shot," Meyer said.

Offensively, Lake Zurich was paced by junior Michael Bens and senior Nick Penny. Bens scored 6 of his 14 points during a decisive 19-1 run by the Bears that opened the game up. The run lasted from the 2:32 mark of the first quarter until the 2:32 mark of the second quarter.

"Bens made some huge plays for us and he has done that the last few games," Pitcher said. "He really does an excellent job of anticipating the next pass and getting easy buckets, which doesn't happen in this league."

Penny, despite playing in foul trouble most of the night, still led all scorers with 20 points. He also added 8 rebounds to pace Lake Zurich.

Mundelein (2-24, 0-9) did get an offensive spark from junior Aaron Woolford, who scored 5 of his team-best 14 points in the first quarter.

"When he plays with that type of energy he can be a tough player to defend," Mundelein coach Corey Knigge said. "He can go end-to-end just like that and he can really do some good things when he plays like that."

Mundelein and Lake Zurich were tied on three different occasions in the first quarter before the Bears held Mundelein without a field goal for over eight minutes.