Marist pulls away from Lake Zurich at McDonald's Shootout

On Monday, Lake Zurich's girls basketball team kept it close for the first half.

After that, Marist changed everything in its favor and ran away with a 56-35 victory over the Bears in the McDonald's Shootout at Willowbrook High School in Villa Park.

"We had a great game on Saturday and thought it would carry over - it didn't," said Lake Zurich coach Chris Bennett, whose team lost to NSC Lake standout Libertyville by 3 points over the weekend. "Marist was a good basketball team, and they hit their shots.

"(Marist) took it to us in the second half and we didn't respond to it."

Lake Zurich (7-15) got off to a good start, shooting its way to a 15-7 lead as Gabby Chapa (team-high 12 points) dropped in a 3 with 1:25 left in the opening quarter.

The Bears held a 15-11 advantage starting the second quarter and extended the lead to 24-17 with 3:08 remaining as Audrey Bauer (9 points, 9 rebounds) had a rebound and putback.

But the Red Hawks (15-7) scored the next 7 points and pulled even at 24-24 going into the half.

"We did a nice job attacking (Marist's) zone in the first quarter," Bennett said. "We also did a nice job playing defense in the second quarter. But then their zone took us apart. We couldn't find anybody else to score."

The third quarter favored the Red Hawks in a big way. Jetaun Rouse scored 16 of her game-high 24 points as Marist outscored Lake Zurich 22-2 and to open up a 20-point lead.

"It was an explosion," Rouse said. "We wanted to win this game. I took it upon myself, because I wasn't reaching my potential. So I had to pick it up.. I think the entire team was playing slow for a while."

Lake Zurich couldn't recover in the final quarter. Marist started on a 10-2 run and extended the lead to 56-28.

DePaul-bound Haley Stercic added 14 points for the Red Hawks and Leah Bolton chipped in 10 and 10 rebounds.

"We knew (coming in) Bauer was a great player," Marist coach Pat Connolly said. "We wanted to front her, and have help behind her. We call that the sandwich in a 2-3 zone.

"But the big difference was that we made our layups in the second half. We did run a little bit more. We thought we were quicker than (Lake Zurich). It was a matter of getting the rebounds, so we could run."