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Washington, Lakes able to shoot past Round Lake

There is certainly enough high school basketball to go around during the holidays.

Most teams play in tournaments that involve a handful of games, many on back-to-back days.

And on off days, plenty of teams practice.

But even all that still wasn't enough basketball for Brittany Washington. The Lakes junior guard took it upon herself to do more over her holiday break.

On days in which her team had practice, Washington left school, drove over to a gym near her house and shot baskets on her own.

"To start the season, I wasn't shooting as well as I wanted to, so I really tried to work on it during break," Washington said. "I thought that maybe if I just kept shooting through it that maybe my shots would start falling."

A few did for Washington on Tuesday night. She hit two 3-pointers, a shot that she specifically focused on during her solo trips to the local gym, and finished with 8 points in leading Lakes to a 32-18 Northern Lake County Conference victory over host Round Lake.

"I just got a lot of shots up, a lot of reps," Washington said. "I wanted to be prepared to play in games. I was focusing on threes because I was struggling with those and I wanted to get them down. I want to be a 3-point shooter on this team."

Lakes shot out to a 14-6 first quarter lead with 3-pointers from Washington and Kylie Jozwik, who finished with a game-high 10 points. The Eagles, who improve to 8-10, took a 21-10 lead into the locker room at halftime.

Defense was key in the second half as Lakes held Round Lake to just eight points over the third and fourth quarters, including just 1 point in the fourth quarter.

But Lakes coach Brian Phelan happened to be impressed with Round Lake's defense, which made it tough on Lakes to take full advantage of its height advantage. Paule Ceneac (6-foot-1) and Mia Edwards (5-foot-10) combined for just 7 points for the Eagles.

"I thought Round Lake did a really good job with their halfcourt defense," Phelan said. "They were taking away the middle and we couldn't get the ball inside. Give Round Lake credit, they played a good defensive game."

Round Lake was even down two starters, Diane Flade and Samantha Nicoline, both of whom were out with injuries.

"I thought we really battled," Round Lake coach Doug Barnshaw said. "We've got a lot of people out but the group that was out there kept fighting and fighting and fighting. In particular, the way we played on the defensive end was really impressive.

"Offensively, we got shots, we just didn't make shots. What kept us in the game was defense. We got an incredible (defensive) effort from Ally Ramirez and Hannah Brooks."

Offensively, Round Lake was led by Emily Etherington, who scored 7 points. Griselda Martinez added 6 points on two 3-pointers.

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