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New experience for Lake Park

New coach. New attitude. More wins.

That's the story of the Lake Park boys basketball team so far this season.

A year ago the Lancers went just 6-20, but they are already 9-4 this season by virtue of a 43-39 victory over Glenbard West on Thursday in the third round of the 17th annual Glenbard West Holiday Classic.

They'll play Glenbard South for the tournament title at 7:45 p.m. Friday.

A scenario like that may well have been unthinkable last season. But new coach Billy Pitcher has got his players believing,

"This is by far our best win this year," said junior forward Trevor Montiel, who scored 9 Thursday and grabbed 3 rebounds. "We're all juniors, we're coming in and we know we have the potential to be fantastic, a great all-around team, and this proved it."

Like that confidence? Here's a take from his junior teammate, Luke Sgarbosa, who led the Lancers with 13 points against Glenbard West and added 5 rebounds.

"(This win) gives us a lot of momentum going forward," Sgarbosa said. "New coach, pretty much everyone is new this year. We're only going to get better as time goes on."

Montiel hit a 3-pointer at the first-quarter buzzer that gave the Lancers a 15-12 lead they would never relinquish, though it did get dicey late, as Glenbard West (10-3) pulled to within 38-36 with 3:44 to go.

But four straight free throws by junior Montrell Perry and senior Max Ellenbecker with under 25 seconds to go gave Lake Park some breathing room, and good thing, too. Glenbard West senior Evan Taylor hit his own 3-pointer with 4.5 seconds to go. Lake Park senior Tommy Zakic set the final score with one of two freebies with 3.5 seconds left.

Pitcher couldn't overestimate the importance of the win, one in which they held Taylor to just 16 points. He was averaging 20 coming in.

"It was a real big win, coming into their home floor and they've got some real good players," he said. "Taylor, he's legit, he can do everything. They've got some shooters. We executed well, we played team defense on Taylor, we took care of the ball."

They also shot the 3. Sgarbosa, who came in averaging 17.9 points a game, hit on 3 of them, including one from the top left of the key to give his team a 31-20 lead with 5:07 to go in the third quarter.

But the Hilltoppers battled back, thanks to a 6-0 run punctured by a Taylor dunk to cut the deficit to 31-26 at the end of the quarter. A 7-2 run midway through the fourth quarter cut Lake Park's lead to 38-26, and it looked like Glenbard West might just have enough to pull this one out. But it didn't play out that way.

"We didn't play very well, and they are a hungry team and young and anxious to continue to get better," Glenbard West coach Tim Hoder said. "I thought we didn't shoot very well. I thought we settled for some perimeter shots. We got to the line six times, which is indicative of settling for jump shots."

But in addition to Taylor's 16 points and 5 rebounds (2 offensive), the Hilltoppers got a longshoreman's effort from senior center Caden Phillips, who scored 9 and grabbed 10 rebounds, 5 offensive.

Still, it was a loss, meaning instead of playing in the tournament championship and perhaps defending their title, the Hilltoppers will play in the third-place game at 6:15 p.m, Friday.

"We just didn't play well, we didn't shoot well, I didn't play well," Taylor said. "We should have came out much better than we did."

  Glenbard West's Caden Phillips is under heavy pressure from Lake Park's defense comprised of Montrell Perry and Trevor Montiel in the first half of the varsity matchup in Glen Ellyn on Thursday. Mark Welsh/mwelsh@dailyherald.com
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