'Diaper Devils' tumble at LZ
John Stanczykiewicz put three freshmen and a sophomore in his starting lineup and afterward cleverly referred to them as his "Diaper Devils."
This season is indeed all about baby steps for Warren's girls basketball team, and against host Lake Zurich on Tuesday night the young Blue Devils took another step.
That they ultimately stumbled and bumped their chin, losing 49-31 to a veteran Bears' team, wasn't all surprising.
It's not worth crying about, since their time will seemingly come.
"They got some nice young kids," coach Chris Bennett said after his Bears (15-3) improved to a North Suburban Lake Division-best 6-1. "They play really well in spurts, and as they get a little bit older they're going to make those spurts longer and be really hard to beat."
Lake Zurich jumped out to a 14-2 lead after one quarter, but Warren (7-11, 3-3) used an effective zone defense to prevent the game from getting away. The Blue Devils cut their deficit to 20-12 by halftime.
Lake Zurich's Gabby Chapa, who enjoyed one of her better games offensively, hit a 3-pointer to put the Bears up 25-14 with 4:35 to go in the third, but Joree Green (team-best 11 points) and sophomore Morgan Garrett (6 points, 6 rebounds) helped spark a Blue Devils comeback.
A fastbreak layup by Garrett got Warren within 27-22. Then after a Lake Zurich timeout, a steal and layup by Marla Pettis made it 27-24 with 1:04 left in the third.
"It's tough to play a team second time around, and good coaches make adjustments," said Bennett, whose team beat Warren 49-33 on Dec. 2. "He made some adjustments and took us out of some things we like to do, and we had to find something else. We gave up some easy baskets, and I think the kids got mad about it and decided to play defense and rebound."
Lake Zurich used an 11-2 run to start the fourth, and that was the game. Back-to-back steals by Lydia Bauer highlighted the flurry. She fed Olivia Allen for layup on the first and finished the second herself. Allen had a steal and layup earlier in the quarter.
"We knew we had to make some stops on defense," Chapa said. "Once we started getting our stops, it created our offense."
"We kind of fell flat," said Green, Warren's only senior starter. "(Lake Zurich) came out with a lot of intensity (to start the fourth) and we tried to answer back. We went into 'black,' which is like our trapping defense, but we couldn't recover down low and they made a lot of open shots."
Sisters Lydia and Audrey Bauer both had big fourth quarters and finished with nearly identical numbers. Lydia had 12 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals. Audrey posted 12 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals.
Chapa shot 3 of 4 from beyond the arc and finished with 11 points, while Allen had 8 points and 4 assists despite picking up 2 fouls in the game's first two minutes.
"I shot more confidently," Chapa said. "I knew that because Olivia was out with early foul trouble that I had to step up for her."
Jessica Prince, Warren's 6-foot-2 freshman who started along with classmates Amanda Barger and Alexis Leneau, pulled down 8 rebounds.
Lake Zurich outscored Warren 19-5 in the fourth.
"Right now we leave too many points on the floor - missed layups," Stanczykiewicz said. "We didn't shoot a lot of free throws (2), but the ones we shot we didn't make. If you shoot two, you got to make two. If you shoot three, you got to make three.
"But I thought we had good effort. The kids are coming around."