Christian Liberty can't finish comeback

Christian Liberty was poised to complete a big nonconference boys basketball comeback Wednesday night against North Shore Country Day.

But freshmen Austin Curren and Jamie Swimmer didn't lose their poise as they combined for the game's final 9 points to lead North Shore (4-12) to a 61-56 victory at Grace Gym in Arlington Heights.

"The whole game we were a little bit out of control," said Christian Liberty 5-foot-9 sophomore Luke Comerouski, who had game highs of 22 points and 11 rebounds against the taller Raiders. "We got hot but we should have slowed down up that much (4 points). We didn't and we had a couple of dumb turnovers."

Christian Liberty (8-7) rallied from a 30-17 deficit with three minutes left in the third quarter to take three 4-point fourth-quarter leads. Gabriel Clayborne's 3 made it 54-50 with 21/2 minutes left but a turnover prevented a chance to add to the lead or subtract more time.

A rebound basket by Aaron Johnson (8 points, 5 rebounds) made it 56-52 with 11/2 minutes left. But a 3 by Swimmer (12 points) at 1:17 was the beginning of the end of the Chargers' four-game winning streak.

"It was just a lack of maturity," said Christian Liberty coach Ken Kramer. "We started doing our own thing and gave it right back to them."

The Chargers missed three 3s, 2 free throws and committed a turnover as Curren (18 points) and Swimmer combined to go 6-for-6 on free throws in the final 58 seconds.

Curren and Swimmer combined for 17 of the 26 fourth-quarter points by the Raiders, who were without injured 6-8 scoring leader Eric Van Wart.

"It was perseverance," said North Shore coach Omar Mance. "The experience of some tough games early on really helped us pull this one out against a good Christian Liberty team."

One where the Chargers got a lot better with about 11 minutes to play as Mike Hennek fueled the rally with all 11 of his points and three 3s.

"We picked up our defense a little bit and on offense we swung the ball a lot better so we were getting open," Comerouski said.

"We made a couple of little switches and everything started going our way there," Kramer said, "and then it just kind of fell apart."