Libertyville roughs up Lake Forest
Back on Jan. 15, Libertyville and Lake Forest met in a game that few on the Wildcats roster have been able to forget since.
In that contest, Lake Forest completely dominated the Wildcats in every aspect, including holding the Cats to just 11 first-half points in a 10-point win. Not only did that win catapult the Scouts into the top spot in the North Suburban Lake division, but it sent the Wildcats into a funk that they have been seemingly stuck in for the last month.
"That game really sent us spiraling in a bad direction," said Libertyville coach Scott Bogumil. "It started our freefall right out of the conference race."
This time around, Libertyville provided the Scouts with a little bit of their own medicine.
The Wildcats opened the game on a 14-5 burst and built leads as big as 20 points en route to a 46-34 victory over the visiting Scouts. The win snaps a three-game skid for Libertyville (12-12, 6-6). The victory also ended any hope of Lake Forest (14-10, 8-4) winning the NSC Lake outright. The Scouts did finish in a four-way tie for the division title with Zion-Benton, Stevenson and Warren, but lost out on the tiebreaker to Zion.
"(Libertyville) did a great job of taking away what it was that we wanted to do," said Lake Forest coach Phil La Scala. "They did a great job of running their offense into the post and they were much quicker than we were tonight."
Early on, Libertyville showed this would not be a repeat of the first meeting between the two teams. The Wildcats busted off a 14-2 run on their way to a 14-5 at the end of the first quarter. The 14 points surpassed the 11 points that the Cats scored in the first half during the first meeting.
"We worked all week to be ready for this game tonight," said Libertyville senior Hobie Herberger. "We really wanted to get back to the way that we used to play early in the season."
The way Libertyville used to play early in the year involved a patient offense and a feisty-quick defense. Lake Forest got its fill of both of those aspects Friday night.
"Libertyville did a great job early of taking us out of what we wanted to do," said Lake Forest senior Mitch Hopfinger. "We had some good looks at some 3s and some other shots we just couldn't knock them down then we fell behind."
Lake Forest was able to close to within 28-20 early in the third quarter on a hoop by Thomas Durrett. But the Scouts offense proceeded to go ice cold for the next 7:31 and Lake Forest never really recovered.
Libertyville took advantage of the Scouts' cold shooting and turnovers and Herberger was one of the biggest beneficiaries. Herberger buried a long 3-pointer to extend the Cats lead in the third to 33-20 then his assist on a Tyler Schweigert (7 points) layup put the game seemingly out of reach as the teams hit the midway stretch of the fourth quarter at 38-20.
"I thought the kids did a great job preparing for this game tonight," Bogumil said. "We prepared this week like tonight was a state tournament game and the kids came out and did a great job."
Herberger led all scorers with 16 points whole Durrett was the only Scout to reach double figures by scoring 11 points.