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Lake Forest rallies past Prospect

Prospect was hoping to add some icing to the weekend cake after it clinched a berth in Wednesday's Mid-Suburban League boys basketball championship on Friday night.

However, the Knights let an 11-point third-quarter lead slip away and lost to Lake Forest 53-52 in the inaugural Camp Horseshoe Shootout at Lake Zurich Saturday afternoon.

Scouts star center Lorenzo Edwards, who is uncommitted player at the moment, scored a career-high with 35 points with 13 rebounds and 3 blocked shots.

"Basketball is a game of runs," said Prospect coach John Camardella. "We had a nice run breaking away from a 33-31 lead with three 3-point baskets. I thought we played real well in the third quarter to build the 42-31 lead."

Prospect's Frankie Mack (15 points) did most of the damage for the Knights (15-10) scoring 8 points in the 11-2 run with 2:22 left in the quarter.

Mack, who sat a large part of the first half picking up three fouls (two in the first quarter), picked up his fourth with 2:09 left in the third quarter and went back to the bench.

The Scouts went on a 11-0 run to tie the score at 42 to end the period.

Edwards' 3-point basket as time expired knotted the score. Connor Hannekamp scored 6 points in the run.

Matt Szuba, who played another strong game for Prospect, hit the last of his 16 points, a 3-point basket for the Knights' last lead at 45-43 with 6:33 left.

Edwards' basket gave the Scouts (16-9) the lead for good with 4:30 left at 49-47.

Prospect misfired on their next five possessions with chances to tie or take the lead.

Reed Thomas hit 2 free throws for Lake Forest before Grant Whitebloom's rebound basket pulled Prospect to 51-49 with 12 seconds left.

Hannekamp hit 2 more free throws for a 53-49 before David Swedura (12 points) swished through a long 3-pointer for the Knights' final points.

"Playing teams like this is a big measurement of yourself as a team," Camardella said. "We've had five losses by a basket or less this year. I was proud of the way we executed tonight,"

"We took what they gave us inside," said Lake Forest coach Phil LaScala. "On their third-quarter run, Mack was killing us. Prospect ran their offense real well. We knew they were well coached."

"I felt I had to be aggressive inside," said the Edwards, a 6-foot-7 senior center. "When we fell behind, we thought we could bounce back. We just had to remain calm and run our offense.

"We had done it before when we came back from 23 down to Libertyville. We had to play good defense down the stretch. We're lucky Connor (8 points in the second half) came up with some big points for us. Prospect played some hard defense against us."

Prospect has three days to prepare for the MSL championship on Wednesday at Conant.

"Playing the schedule that we have will help us prepare ourselves for the games ahead," Camardella said.

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