Antioch's 'Big 3' power to Lake Forest triumph

Every girls basketball team expects a dose of double trouble when Antioch comes up on the schedule.

The Reiser twins, seniors Ashley and Amy, have been grabbing headlines since they made varsity as freshmen, and quickly became starters.

But these days, Antioch's scary sister act has become more like a three-headed monster.

No longer in the Reisers' shadow, fellow senior Erika Gallimore, who has been playing with the twins since fifth grade, gives Antioch another weapon that can be just as dangerous and potent.

Gallimore had one of her best games of the season on Monday afternoon in leading Antioch to a crushing 65-35 victory over Lake Forest in the championship game of Lake Forest's Martin Luther King Day Invitational. Gallimore scored a game-high 18 points on 3 three-pointers.

"That was me a lot last year, kind of (in the Reisers' shadow)," Gallimore said. "But I'm really stepping it up this year. This is my senior year, and I want to do good.

"I've really pushed myself this year. I've stepped up my defense and my offense. I drive to the hoop more and I've worked on my shot so I can take more 3s. Now other teams have to worry about all (three) of us."

The Reisers also scored in double-figures for Antioch, which moves to 18-3 on the season. Amy finished with 14 points and Ashley added 12 points.

But this was Gallimore's show.

"Erika has been playing out of the world lately," Antioch coach Tim Borries said. "She has been playing with such confidence, playing like she's the best player on the court and suddenly we have the 'Big 3.' She's good and I think now, she's realizing her potential.

"For the last couple years, she was a role player to Amy and Ashley. Teams we play know about Amy and Ashley but Erika is stepping up and saying to people, 'Hey, know about me, too.' And that makes us really tough."

The Sequoits were extremely tough on defense, scoring many of their points off of Lake Forest's 23 turnovers. Many of those turnovers were generated by Antioch's full-court pressure and half-court traps.

"They come after you with crazy pressure," said Lake Forest coach Kyle Wilhelm, whose team drops to 17-8 on the season. "They're always trapping the basketball. And it's never ending. They are always attacking you defensively.

"We helped them out. We went back on our heels."

Antioch was up 17-10 by the end of the first quarter but really took control in the second quarter, out-scoring Lake Forest 18-5. That gave Antioch a 35-15 halftime lead.

"We definitely brought a lot of energy out there today," Gallimore said. "We work really great together.

"We're really aggressive on defense. It's like our secret weapon. We come out really strong and we trap really well. We go after the ball really hard."

Gallimore has been going hard at basketball for years, sometimes with the hardest challenges coming in her own driveway where she takes on her older sister and younger brother.

Older sister Paige was a star for the Sequoits two years ago and now plays basketball at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Younger brother Branden Gallimore is a junior on the basketball team at Antioch and also is the starting varsity quarterback.

"We help each other a lot," Erika Gallimore said of her relationship with her siblings. "We play 1-on-1 in the summer all the time. It's a really great experience because they are bigger and stronger than me so that helps me out a lot.

"It gets really intense out on the driveway. Sometimes we get in fights, but it's really, really fun."