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Sgarbossa, Lake Park win Glenbard West crown

Without making a basket Lake Park's Luke Sgarbossa had major impact in a championship setting.

The junior guard went 11 of 11 from the foul line, hitting two free throws with 9.1 seconds left in the Lancers' 44-42 victory over Glenbard South to win the 17th Glenbard West Holiday Classic on Friday.

"I'm very happy. It feels good," said Sgarbossa, who scored 9 of his 11 points in the second half.

"In the first half Trevor (Montiel) really had it going, he had a mismatch pretty much every time down," Sgarbossa said of his 6-foot-5, 220-pound teammate.

"In the second quarter, like late second quarter, he wasn't really getting it anymore so I kind of decided I had to be more aggressive if we wanted to get the win."

After Sgarbossa's decisive free throws Glenbard South (9-3) crossed midcourt and took time out with 4.6 seconds remaining. The Raiders got what they wanted - a shot from the low block - but couldn't convert.

"The kids played hard, that's all we can ask," said Raiders coach Wade Hardtke.

"We keep talking about it - we take care of some of the little things and we'll be where we want to be at the end of the game," he said. "That's really what we're working toward for 32 minutes, is just put yourself in a spot to win at the end and I thought we did that."

Trailing 39-37 in the last four minutes, Lake Park (10-4) assembled what felt much bigger than a 5-0 run. Tommy Zakic converted an alley-oop pass from Montrell Perry, Max Ellenbecker scored inside and added a free throw to lead 42-39 with 1:52 left.

Glenbard South's Tommy Powers, who led all scorers with 17 points, hit a 3 from up top to tie the game 42-42 with 1:42 left. Lake Park worked the clock to set up the final sequence.

"This gives us a lot of confidence," said Lake Park coach Billy Pitcher. "We've been telling these guys how much we believe in them and how good we think they can be. Now this is the proof. When you play that well and you execute this is what can happen, this can be the result."

Montiel was a load in the first quarter, scoring 10 of his team-high 13 points and headed for more until Hardtke shifted 6-1, 160-pound guard Kevin Enright onto the big man.

Enright's 2 steals paced an 11-2 run to close the second quarter, Powers nailing a 3 to give Glenbard South a 27-21 halftime lead. The scored was tied 33-33 after three quarters, Sgarbossa going 7 of 7 from the foul line. The Lancers made 17 of 22 free throws to Glenbard South's 8 of 8.

Zakic scored 11 points. Glenbard South's Cade Hardtke scored 8 and Nick Plaso was a spark with 6.

"Proud of our team," Enright said, "and we're building for an end goal in the playoffs, want to make a run there, so this is something good to learn from."

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