Lake Park remains hot from the arc, beats Wheaton North
Lake Park is in a serious 3-point shooting groove.
The Lancers made their first four 3-pointers and 10 of 17 in the first half of Thursday's DuKane Conference girls basketball game at Wheaton North, then withstood a second-half Falcons rally for a 62-56 victory.
"It was on fire," said Lake Park senior Payton Skalski, who made 4 of her seven 3-point attempts and finished with 12 points. "Like every time I just look, I know it's going in. I've got trust in my teammates and I know it's going good."
"We just not thinking, we're just playing," added Lancers senior guard Casey Darre, who tied her season best with 23 points. She finished 5 of 7 from 3-point range. "We know what we want and we're going for it."
Thursday's game followed a lights-out 15-of-27 3-point shooting performance Monday in an upset of state-ranked Montini at Coach Kipp's Hoopsfest.
Despite the Lancers' hot start Wheaton North stayed close, trading the lead often until the Lancers (17-5, 5-4) pulled away late in the second quarter for a 39-29 halftime lead.
"Oh my gosh, that half was amazing. For the team, for me," Darre said. "Yeah, it was awesome."
Wheaton North (14-5, 7-4), as it usually does, responded in the second half with increased defensive intensity.
"First half we just didn't get to shooters, and they had a lot of open looks," Falcons coach Dave Eaton said. "Second half we did a better job of finding shooters, finding kids in transition. And then we made them make plays. And they made plays down the stretch too."
Lake Park led by as much as 15 points early in the second half, but the Falcons cut the deficit to 48-41 by the end of the third quarter.
Freshman Claire Hyde hit a pair of key 3-point shots in the fourth, the second cutting the Lake Park lead to 53-51 with 4:11 to play.
Lake Park senior Kate Kirkham answered with a basket, and junior Darrione Rogers added a free throw to create a little space on the scoreboard.
"Overall I think we played good together as a team and we finished strong," Skalski said.
A Nikki Baird 3-pointer again cut the lead to 2 points, but Rogers scored 2 of her 17 points with 2:18 to play. Sophomore Emma Thorne and Darre went 4 of 4 at the free-throw line in the final 31.2 seconds.
Baird led the Falcons with 16 points and Hyde had 15. Rogers added a dozen rebounds for Lake Park.
"It's another really hard-fought victory that's hopefully going to help us in the playoffs," said Lancers coach Brian Rupp, whose team has a conference game Saturday at home against St. Charles North.