This Lakes victory well worth shouting about

It was a sweet pass. That's for sure.

In fact, it was perhaps the best assist of the season for the Lakes boys basketball team.

But that's not the only reason Lakes guard Michael Behrendt erupted with a primal scream as he finished on a layup off of Nick Garcia's pretty, but risky behind-the-back pass.

Behrendt was letting off a little steam, and getting some much-needed relief from a mounting frustration that had spanned more than a month for the Eagles.

The Garcia-to-Behrendt layup put Lakes firmly in control against visiting Grayslake Central Wednesday night with about a minute left to play. It gave the Eagles a 12-point lead, which ultimately led to a 54-39 Northern Lake County Conference victory.

The win also put an end to a nine-game losing streak for Lakes. The Eagles, who sprinted out to an 18-7 lead by the end of the first quarter and got a game-high 16 points from senior forward Jack Christensen, had not won a game since before Thanksgiving, against Fenton on Nov. 23.

Lakes is now 5-9 overall and 1-3 in Northern Lake County Conference play.

"It was a grind going through a nine-game losing streak," said Behrendt, who finished with 12 points. "We were starting to get down on each other, we were doubting the rest of the season.

"But Coach (Chris) Snyder sat us down and said that 2017 is a new year and it can be a new us and we were a new team today."

The Eagles hadn't played a game since Dec. 27, and had to sit on the losing streak for weeks, only having each other to take it out on in practice.

"We actually really needed that time to kind of just work on some of the basics," said Snyder, who also got 12 points out of senior forward Ian Haflinger. "And we saw a lot of what we worked on out there tonight.

"Defensively, we started with a single-digit quarter and ended with a single-digit quarter (Grayslake Central scored 8 points in the fourth quarter), and that kind of book-ended a pretty solid effort for us."

One of the biggest areas of focus for the Eagles during their layoff was defense. They changed up their approach.

"We went back to the defense we played last year where we pack it in (the lane) and force teams to shoot 3s," Behrendt said. "It's sagging off and a lot more help in the lane. Earlier this season, we were trying to deny everything and overplay everything and we were getting beat a lot back door."

Even with the Lakes defense sagging and the perimeter relatively open, Grayslake Central (6-9 overall, 2-3 NLCC) had a tough time knocking down shots.

"We settled on offense for jumpers and we just didn't shoot well," Grayslake Central coach Kosta Kougias said. "We told our kids that Lakes was a much better team than you would think by their record. They had lost a lot of close games, and you knew they were going to be really hungry to get a win.

"You hope the focus is there, but it wasn't for us tonight. We didn't really come out and match them in the first quarter. They came out ready to play and we didn't. It was a matter of we didn't match their intensity."

Jack Spalding led Grayslake Central with 14 points while sophomore guard Tony Crews added 11 points.

"Jack can do a lot of things for us. He can play in the post and knock down shots," Kougias said. "He took advantage of his opportunities in the post tonight.

"But we needed to shoot better as a team and be more focused for 32 minutes."