Saturday's Lake County roundup
Stevenson's girls basketball team played hard but could not pull off a win in its season opener Saturday, losing to visiting Marist 59-57.
Marist's Haley Stercic scored 16 points, including two free throws with 5.9 seconds left, to give the RedHawks the win. Marist freshman point guard Jetaun Rouse added 15 points.
Stevenson's Michelle O'Brien and Kelsey Simon each contributed 20 points.
"It was a great opener," Stevenson coach Tom Dineen said. "The kids played very, very well."
Libertyville 53, Crystal Lake South 31: Libertyville's Olivia Wilcox scored 18 points to lift the Wildcats at the Buffalo Grove tournament.
Alex Haley and Nicole Kruckman added 8 points apiece for Libertyville (2-1).
The Gators' Katie Burton scored 11 points.
Mundelein 47, Carmel 37: At Mundelein, the host Mustangs rallied for their third win in a row, receiving 17 points from Brooke Evans and 16 from Olivia Dunigan.
It was the first loss for Carmel (3-1).
Jessi Bjerning added 9 for Mundelein, which trailed 31-27 after three quarters before outscoring Carmel 20-6 in the fourth.
Erin Quinn scored a team-high 8 points for the Corsairs.
Grayslake North 51, Glenbrook North 35: At Mundelein, the Knights led the entire game and had 15 steals, including five by sophomore point guard Katie McGrath.
Kinsey Siler led Grayslake North (2-2) with 21 points. Lauren Erickson contributed 11 points, and McGrath added nine.
Highland Park 34, Rolling Meadows 33: At Mundelein, in the final game of the day, the Giants pulled out the win.
Brianna Collier and Nichole Monhait had 15 and 13 points, respectively, for Highland Park.
Warren 46, Simeon 32: At Loyola, the Blue Devils won their first game of the season, as Alex Booker had 14 points and 5 rebounds.
Warren (1-1) also received 9 points from Amanda Barger, while freshman guard Ellie Gallo dished out 7 assists.
Round Lake 39, Rockford E. 20: At Harvard, Chanae Brown scored 12 points and Kenzie Phillips added 10, as the Panthers won their first of two games on the day.
CL Central 31, Round Lake 18: At Harvard, the Panthers concluded the tournament with their first loss of the season.
Kenzie Phillips had 5 points for Round Lake (3-1), which trailed 11-5 after one quarter and 20-9 at halftime.
Lake Forest 59, Evanston 44: At Deerfield, Claire DiMario had 22 points and 6 rebounds, and Mary Striedl added 15 points and 5 steals for the Scouts (3-0).
Deerfield 54, Grant 37: At Deerfield, the host Warriors got 25 points, including three 3-pointers, from Kathleen Forrest.
Grant (0-3) was led in scoring by Heather Chapman with 16 points.
Rosary 56, Antioch 51: At Geneva, the Sequoits dropped their season opener despite a strong game by junior guard Andi Potkonjak in her first game in a year.
Potkonjak, who tore her ACL in Antioch's season opener last season, had 13 points, 8 steals and 5 assists. The Sequoits also got 12 points from Allie Anttila.
Lindsey Gofron had 9 points for Antioch, which got outscored 18-8 in the last quarter, after leading 22-11 after one quarter.
Geneva 73, Lakes 26: New season, new uniforms, a few new players - everything else was the same old Geneva.
The Vikings took the court for the first time since losing the Class 4A third-place game last March and started another season of fastbreaking, up-tempo basketball with a 73-26 win over outmanned Lakes Saturday at the Vikings' 22nd annual Thanksgiving tournament.
Geneva coach Gina Nolan went to her bench early and often, getting 14 players extended playing time. Eleven of them scored, led by junior guard Kat Yelle's 14.
Yelle scored on three layups off Lakes turnovers in the first three minutes of the game. Geneva led 8-0 at that point and extended the advantage to 20-4 after one quarter, 47-10 at halftime and 68-20 after three.
"It felt great being on the court again," said Yelle, an Ohio University commit. "Nothing is really different. We all like to run and gun. We know where all of us are on the court."
Nolan called off her press with 5:29 left in the second quarter with the Eagles struggling just to get past half-court. Geneva's starters weren't on the court long, just 13 of the 32 minutes. That was enough time for each to make an impact.
After coming off the bench last year, junior Sam Scofield moved into the starting lineup and scored 8 points to go with 3 assists and 2 steals. Post players Lauren Wicinski and Kelsey Augustine combined for 16 points, 16 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocked shots.
And sophomore Ashley Santos, in her first game since transferring from Bartlett, did a little of everything with 6 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, a steal and a block.
"First-game jitters, they weren't too bad," Santos said. "I loved it. It was a lot of fun just finally being able to play with them felt really good. The girls are great, I love playing with them."
About the only thing that went wrong for Geneva was its foul shooting, just 4 of 15 in the first half. Yelle missed all four attempts, including an air ball, though even the misses turned into points with Wicinski (12 points, 11 rebounds) snatching several for putback baskets.
"I don't know what was going on," Yelle said. "I was making them all in the shootaround. Just an off-day I guess."
Once Nolan turned to her bench she received several more strong performances, led by Myra Yelle's 10 points, 6 from Sam Dudman and Brook Binette and 4 by Dori Rogers.
"I thought we played really good team basketball," Nolan said. "I though Lauren and Kelsey did a great job on the boards early, we had 4 or 5 looks at the basket on a couple possessions. I'm happy with the turnovers we forced."
Lakes (0-1), in just its fourth year with a varsity team, was led by Jennifer Totten's 8 points. The Eagles also have a new coach, Pete Schneider, who could have asked for an easier opening assignment in his debut.
"They are extremely quick. They are a good team, a great team, the best team on our schedule," Schneider said. "We have a lot of stuff to work on but we'll get back at it. I liked the fact our kids didn't give up. They stayed after it. You only get better by playing better teams."
- John Lemon