Hersey outnumbers Lake Forest

Team depth prevailed over a tremendous individual effort in Tuesday's Class 4A regional semifinal between No. 14 Hersey and No. 4 Lake Forest at Warren.

Hersey's balanced attack was able to overcome 26 points from Lake Forest's Mitch Hopfinger for a 61-50 victory.

"It was a good team win," Hersey coach Steve Messer said. "I like to see the numbers all spread out (for scoring)."

Sophomore forward Vuk Vukovic led the way for Hersey with 14 points. And Justin Jobski (11), Kyle Miklasz (10), Connor Miklasz (7), and Tom Sutrinaitis (7) helped make the Huskies tough to defend.

It looked like things weren't going to go Hersey's way as the first half was drawing to a close. The Scouts held a 25-21 lead, had possession of the ball, and were holding for a final shot with under a minute to play in the half.

But the Huskies were able to force a couple of turnovers and convert on the offensive end to go into halftime tied at 25-25 instead of down 4, or possibly 6 or 7.

"Having the game tied instead of being down just gave us a little more hope," Vukovic said. "They were the higher seed and we came in as the lower seed, and just tried to fight as hard as we could."

Messer said that swing was huge for his team.

"You could just see the momentum on that one," Messer said. "That's a big difference. If you were up 4 points and you expand the lead to 8, or 4 points and you catch up - that's momentous."

Hersey (16-12) used that momentum to outscore Lake Forest 16-7 in the third quarter and seize control of the game.

"We just came together at halftime when it was tied at 25, and we said we're not losing tonight, we want to go to the regional final," said Kyle Miklasz, who had 7 assists to go along with his 10 points.

Lake Forest (15-11) coach Phil LaScala said Hersey's defense was very aggressive and forced the Scouts into 20 turnovers.

"That causes some run-outs for them, and easy baskets for them," LaScala said. "When we had the game in the half court, I thought we did a decent job. But when they started turning us over and making the game faster that hurt us."

Hersey will face the winner of tonight's game between No. 12 Warren and No. 5 Stevenson on Friday for the regional championship.