Lake Forest outlasts Libertyville in furious sectional semifinal

A good scorer himself back in the day, who grew up watching sharp-shooting Kyle Kessel fill up the basket for Mundelein, Lake Forest girls basketball coach Kyle Wilhelm jogged his memory and recalled the "Kessel era."

That's the last time he remembers watching a game where teams kept draining long-distance shots at a feverish pace.

Like most people in the gym, Wilhelm watched with sometimes an incredulous look Tuesday night, as his Scouts exchanged three-point shot after three-point shot with host Libertyville in the teams' Class 4A sectional semifinal.

In the end, Wilhelm's Scouts hit 2 fewer 3s than their opponent but won 66-53 to advance to Thursday's 7 p.m. final at Libertyville. No. 2 Lake Forest (26-7) will play top-seeded Fremd (27-4) at 7 p.m.

"We were hitting," Wilhelm said. "Thank goodness."

No. 3 Libertyville kept making shots too. While Lake Forest went 10 of 25 from three-point range, the Wildcats made 12 of 24 shots from beyond the arc.

"We knew coming into it that it was going to be a fast game," said Lake Forest 6-foot-2 junior guard Halle Douglass, who had a game-high 26 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists and 4 steals. "We like to play fast. They like to play fast. To keep up with them, we had to hit shots, and (both teams) did that."

Libertyville's 23-8 season included winning its own winter tournament, the North Suburban Conference championship and the Vernon Hills regional title. The Wildcats beat Lake Forest on their home court 51-34 to open NSC play, before losing at Lake Forest 58-38 in early January.

"Any team that's going to play against us is going to have to get up and down the floor, and to their credit they were able to," Libertyville coach Greg Pedersen said of the Scouts. "They can run right back with us, and we talked about that going into the game. As much as we like to do what we like to do to teams that aren't ready to play us, this team will be able to run right back at us and try to get fastbreak layups and shoot the 3."

Lake Forest got three 3-pointers apiece from Douglass, Grace Tirzmalis (22 points, 6 rebounds) and Molly Fisher (9 points). But no player on either side was more efficient from the arc than Libertyville junior point guard Margaret Buchert - which was saying a lot.

Buchert led the Wildcats with 20 points, shooting 6 of 8 from three-point range. She hit two 3s in the final 18 seconds of the third quarter to even the score at 41-41. Lydia Crow knocked down a 3-pointer before Buchert buried her pair.

"I fed off the energy in the gym," Buchert said. "It was nice to have fans at our game. I think it really helped us to get momentum in the third quarter."

In a back-and-forth game, Lake Forest came back to start the fourth. The Scouts scored the first 14 points of the quarter, getting 3-pointers from Finola Summerville and Fisher, as well as 4 points from Douglass. Tirzmalis' layup started the run, which had Lake Forest up 55-41 with five minutes left.

"I think we had a reality check because that happened the last game (against Libertyville) too," Tirzmalis said. "I think we just knew, 'OK, we got this. We can hit shots. We just got to get in the zone and fix our defense a little bit.' I think we really focused well on that."

All five Lake Forest starters hit at least 1 shot in the fourth quarter, and the Scouts outscored the Wildcats 25-12.

"I think our defense just kept up," Wilhelm said. "I think our rotations got better. (Libertyville) didn't really get as clean looks in the second half."

Crow (three 3-pointers) and Abigail Frea (two 3s) each scored 11 points for Libertyville. Lauren Huber (6 points, 7 rebounds) drained a 3 as well.

"We knew that if they hit 3s, we'd be in trouble, because we wanted to fortify the inside and make sure that we did not give up high-lows, layups, post moves, drives, especially Halle driving to the middle," Pedersen said. "I thought we did a pretty good job of taking that stuff away, but what that did was if left the perimeter open for just a half-second, and they did a great job of just knocking down their shots."