Lisle not satisfied with decisive win

Even with the lead, Lisle didn't feel like it had played a great first half Monday against visiting Manteno.

The third quarter was different story. The Lions forced 8 turnovers, outscored the Panthers 10-3 and then won the Interstate Eight Conference girls basketball game going away 41-24.

Tyann LeGrand-Melton scored 5 of her 10 points in the key third quarter and blocked a shot and had a steal.

"We were pretty good, but I think we played slow," the Lions senior guard said. "This was not one of our best games. We made a lot of mistakes defensively and offensively."

But what about that third quarter?

"It was kind of nice to come out like that," LeGrand-Melton said. "We just need to clean up our mistakes and we'll be good. (The defense) moves our pace. We set the pace by getting steals and we pick up each other."

Nicole Cyranoski knocked down a 3-pointer on the Lions' first possession of the night, and LeGrand-Melton followed with a steal and layup for a quick 5-0 lead. But the paced slowed a bit and Lisle led just 8-4 after one quarter and 20-11 at the half.

But Cyranoski scored 7 of her 12 points in the second half, and the Lions forced 13 turnovers while giving away the ball just five times themselves in the second half. Natalie Takahashi shared scoring honors with Cyranoski at 12 points, and Takahashi added 4 steals and 6 rebounds.

"I thought we could have played better," said Cyranoski, who had 4 steals and 1 block as part of the team's solid defense. "We were kind of slow on offense in this game. But we're still fortunate we were able to hit shots."

The senior guard, who has helped the team get off to a 6-3 start and 2-1 in the conference, thinks the Lions just need to stay fired up from the opening tip.

"We need to get the adrenaline pumping more. We need to stay excited and super focused and play confident the whole four quarters," she said. "Most of the time we're better in the second half. We know more about what's going on and we know how to enforce more things."

Lisle coach Nick Balaban will take a conference win anytime but knows his team will need to be sharper against some of the tougher teams it faces, including Thursday's conference road test.

"We didn't rebound the ball very well. If we don't defend and we don't rebound - granted it looks nice that we only gave up 24 points - but there are a lot of things we need to clean up on defense," Balaban said. "(The Panthers) had really good shots and they did a tremendous job on the boards. We've got to clean that up because we've got a tough stretch of games coming up. It starts Thursday with Reed-Custer on the road. That will be a challenge."

McKenna Skyberg paced Manteno (2-4, 0-2) with 8 points while Caitlyn Moisant had 10 rebounds. Center Abbey Kretman led the Lions in rebounding with 9.