Knar, Sawvell delight as Mundelein rolls

In terms of points, Mundelein guard Robert Knar clearly out-did teammate Ryan Sawvell on Tuesday night. Knar scored 29 points against Lake Forest, Sawvell scored 12.

But on style points, the race between the Mustangs’ two thoroughbreds was much closer.

Knar hit one 3-pointer after another, and oftentimes, his shot was so smooth and so spot-on that the ball touched neither rim nor net as it glided straight through.

Meanwhile, Sawvell dunked and dunked and dunked as if he was trying to rip the rim off the backboard. He had three monster, two-handed dunks that probably would have gotten top-notch scores in the IHSA dunk contest.

“With those dunks … I think I probably won that battle (of style points),” Sawvell said with a laugh.

Meanwhile, Mundelein won both the battle and the war against visiting Lake Forest, stylishly coasting to a 60-43 North Suburban Conference Lake Division victory.

Mundelein improves to 21-3 overall and 6-2 in the Lake while Lake Forest drops to 8-11 overall and 1-6 in the Lake.

“I don’t care what anyone says, it’s demoralizing for the other team when two guys play like that,” Mundelein coach Dick Knar said. “When Ryan is going up and he’s gorilla slamming those things with his head by the rim, that’s just a scary thought. And Robert was hitting all those threes.

“Those two have been doing that all year long, though. It’s almost become an expectation.”

Then again, Knar wasn’t expecting such amazing production out of his son Robert in this particular game.

Robert sprained his knee Monday night in practice and was a bit tender heading into the game. He scored 7 first-half points and was favoring his knee.

But he managed to explode in the second half, draining 6-of-9 three-pointers.

With the score tied at 30 with about three minutes left in the third quarter, Knar hit back-to-back 3-pointers. From then on, Lake Forest never seriously threatened.

“I got on Robert a little bit at halftime,” Knar said. “He was saying (the knee) was sore and I said, ‘You can use that as an excuse if you want.’ I just wanted to kind of get to him a little bit because when you do that, that gets him fired up.

“He hit one of those threes in the third quarter and just looked at me like, ‘All right, is that good enough for you, Dad.’ I thought to myself, ‘Yep, I’ll take that.’”

While Knar was draining from downtown, Sawvell was capitalizing on the Mustangs’ relentless trapping defense that forced 22 Lake Forest turnovers.

“Their pressure hurt us,” Lake Forest coach Phil LaScala said. “We didn’t do a good job of handling it tonight. They did a good job of getting deflections and putting our guys in an uncomfortable position.

“(Sawvell) did a great job of that, with his steals.”

Sawvell got two of his three dunks by stepping into a passing lane in the trap near halfcourt, stealing a pass and then speeding to the basket for an uncontested dunk.

“I think it was hard for (Lake Forest). It was like they were thinking that there wasn’t much they could do to stop us,” Sawvell said. “(Knar) was out there getting threes, and I’m getting steals and then dunking it.”

Besides Knar’s game-high 29 points and Sawvell’s 12 points, the Mustangs also got 6 points and another three-pointer from Jordan Wiegold.

Lake Forest was led by Thomas Durrett, who scored 16 points, 14 of which came in the second half.

Durrett scored 4 straight points to pull Lake Forest into that 30-30 tie in the third quarter.

“They did a solid job with their pressure,” Durrett said. “We just went away from our offensive game plan.”