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Sawyer shines again as Stevenson tops Libertyville

For all the good decisions she's made on the basketball court as a freshman playing on varsity, Stevenson guard Simone Sawyer made one off the court that the Patriots are also happy about.

She chose Stevenson.

Sawyer grew up in Lincolnshire, but her two sisters - Jasmine and Aleeya, who's playing soccer at Howard University - attended Lake Forest Academy.

"I didn't know where I was going to go to school," Sawyer said. "I'm happy I came here. I wanted to try out a public school, so I thought Stevenson would be a better fit for me."

Sawyer made Stevenson happy again on Wednesday night. She scored a game-high 22 points, including three of her team's 10 3-pointers, as the Patriots used a big second half to defeat visiting Libertyville 61-44 in North Suburban Conference action.

It was Sawyer's sixth 20-point performance of the season (season-high 33 vs. Mundelein).

"She's a Lincolnshire kid, so it would have been devastating if she went to LFA," Patriots coach Ashley Graham said.

Avery King added 15 points and 11 rebounds, as Stevenson (17-8, 6-4) won for the seventh time in its last eight games, while handing Libertyville (16-7, 7-3) its third conference loss in a row. Freshman guard Ava Bardic (12 points) and sophomore guard Nikki Ware (10) also scored in double figures for Stevenson, which shot 67 percent (10 of 15) from three-point range.

Lauren Huber had 14 points, 7 rebounds and 3 steals for Libertyville, which hit on just 26 percent (15 of 58) of its shots.

"If we had a cold shooting night, it's a credit to Stevenson for playing good defense," Libertyville coach Greg Pedersen said. "They certainly caused enough problems for us for them to win the game."

Libertyville guards Margaret Buchert and Lydia Crow, in particular, struggled getting shots to drop. Buchert scored all 9 of her points in the first half. Crow, who had 6 points, made her only field goal when she stole the ball at half-court and finished a layup with 2 seconds left before halftime to give the Wildcats a 29-26 lead.

"They're both excellent, excellent shooters and they're gamers," Graham said of Buchert and Crow. "Our scouting report is extra long for Libertyville because of those two kids. We just did our best in our switching defenses and making it as hard as possible for them."

Stevenson took control of the game early in the second half, as Ware knocked down a pair of 3-pointers and King canned another against Libertyville's zone. King later finished a layup in transition to cap a 19-2 run and extend Stevenson's lead to 45-31. Led by Ware's 3-of-3 effort, Stevenson made 5 of 8 shots from beyond the arc in the third quarter.

"In the locker room we said that we have to come out really fast, and we did," said Sawyer, who shot 8 of 14, including 3 of 4 from three-point range. "It was a good feeling to have because after halftime the game could have gone either way, and it went our way."

Up 45-35 after three, Stevenson scored the first 10 points of the fourth. King and Bardic each drained a 3-pointer.

"Our shooting definitely was not the best today, but Stevenson had a couple of runs that were really good," Crow said. "We just couldn't answer. We just needed to keep shooting and knock it down."

"Their five guards posed problems for us with the lineup that we had out there at the start of the second half," said Pedersen, whose Wildcats beat the Patriots 62-52 on Dec. 5 at Libertyville. "We had to make some adjustments to try to claw back in."

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