Learning experience for VH vs. Lake Forest

Vernon Hills' girls basketball team is learning on the fly.

Thursday night, the Cougars did that while missing their best player.

Vernon Hills started out by hitting three-point shot after three-point shot, but Lake Forest's defense toughened in the second half, and the Scouts emerged a 66-50 winner in Vernon Hills' ninth annual Cougar Classic.

"I heard something from John Calipari where he mentioned 'Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn,' " Vernon Hills coach Paul Brettner said. "We've got a young, inexperienced group and I think we learned a lot of good things tonight. ... It was a great game. I'm happy with how hard they played for 32 minutes."

Vernon Hills (1-1, 1-1 tournament) played without two-time all-area forward Kayla Caudle, who injured an ankle in practice the other day. Junior newcomer Julie Neary led the Cougars with a team-high 18 points, including three 3-pointers, coming off the bench. Piper Bedell added 14 points.

Vernon Hills opened the game by hitting 5 treys and had a 17-8 advantage. The Cougars carried that momentum into the second quarter, when Bedell's layup hiked their lead to 27-19 with 4:36 left.

"We shot real well (early on)," Brettner said. "Then credit Lake Forest, because they took that away in the second half. Which is something we have to work on."

Lake Forest (1-1) used a 6-0 run in the final minutes of the half to cut its deficit to 27-24. Halle Douglass scored 4 of her game-high 21 points during the run.

The Scouts kept up the pace in the second half and outscored the Cougars 24-7 to take a 48-34 lead into the fourth quarter.

"We have a lot of returning players, so they know what it takes," Lake Forest coach Kyle Wilhelm said. "It's just a matter of how people set them up. We talked before the season about how different people have to step up in different ways.

"We didn't move on defense (in the first quarter)," Wilhelm added. "Vernon Hills wanted it more and was more aggressive. We stepped up our aggressiveness and played a great third quarter defensively. It was our defense that sparked the run. We pushed the ball and had better looks offensively. Vernon Hills had played really hard, but without Kayla (Caudle) they're a bit of a different team."

Elle Pearson added 12 points for Lake Forest, and Lilly Trkla chipped in 12 coming off the bench.

The Scouts have started thee season without all-conference forward Maeve Summerville, who tore her ACL over the summer. They also played Vernon Hills without Audrey Kaus, who bruised her hip in the opening game against Lake Forest Academy.