Libertyville holds off Stevenson

It might be just a phase, which has nothing to do with Libertyville's girls basketball team accomplishing "Phase III."

Call it whatever. When the Wildcats have played Stevenson in the last year, they have been unfazed and little has gone right for the latter. Heck, Patriots hall-of-fame coach Tom Dineen even had his name butchered before Tuesday night's North Suburban Lake Division opener at Libertyville.

Introduced as "Tim" Dineen, he watched his Patriots fall behind immediately and never recover, as Libertyville won 44-37 in a game between two squads that came in undefeated.

So much for the respect that comes with having 702 wins on his coaching resume.

"I think we matched that with 700 missed shots from 3 feet away and turnovers," said Dineen, whose Patriots (4-1) shot 16 of 44 from the floor (36 percent) and committed 21 turnovers.

Libertyville swept Stevenson last season en route to capturing the NSC championship, winning the teams' two games by a combined margin of 3 points.

The Wildcats' win Tuesday night was typical of how they've won since last season: balanced scoring and team defense.

"I think they just play defense and hit their shots," said Stevenson senior Ashley Niedermayer, who posted game highs of 14 points and 9 rebounds.

"I think they get overlooked a lot," Libertyville coach Kathie Swanson said of her girls. "We don't necessarily have stars on this team. We emphasize the whole idea of playing together as a team."

The win allowed Libertyville to conquer another one of its phases.

The first one for the Wildcats was starting the season by beating Opening Night nemesis Prospect. The second was successfully defending their tournament title at Buffalo Grove, and the third was winning their divisional opener.

Phase III just happened to be win No. 3 against Stevenson since last season.

Libertyville (7-0) hit its first 3 shots and built an 11-4 lead late in the opening quarter. The Wildcats stretched the advantage to 20-8 on Olivia Wilcox's 3-pointer and led 22-16 at halftime.

And, the Wildcats won despite committing 26 turnovers and seeing leading scorer Savannah Trees held to 1 field goal and 3 points until she hit 2 free throws with .9 seconds left. Anna Morrissey guarded Trees most of the night.

"I thought we accomplished what we wanted to defensively," Dineen said. "We contained (Trees). ... No one went off on us. It was our offense, or lack of it, (that was the problem)."

Nicole Kruckman led Libertyville with 11 points and 6 rebounds. Kaca Savatic and Wilcox each had 9 points with a 3-pointer, and Alex Haley netted 7 points.

"Stevenson knows Savannah's our go-to person, so they did a good job of shutting her down," said Savatic, who also had 8 rebounds and 3 steals. "I think our whole team, even the girls off the bench (Valerie Van Roeyen and Molly Moon) stepped up and filled their roles. Our points were pretty evenly spread out. That's what Libertyville is about."

Stevenson got within 30-27 late in the third but didn't score in the fourth until Morrissey sank 2 free throws with 1:51 left and the Patriots trailing 40-27. Their full-court pressure helped produce 8 points in 44 seconds to get back within five.

"I think we were just really frazzled at the end," Savatic said. "I think the pressure kind of got to us, and Stevenson had the energy at that time. We were just trying to settle ourselves and calm down."

Haley helped Libertyville achieve that by hitting both ends of a one-and-one to bump the lead to 42-35 with a minute left.

Stevenson helped force 9 turnovers in the fourth.

"We didn't have that same intensity for 32 minutes," Dineen said. "We were very, very tentative right off the bat."

Niedermayer was a bright spot for Stevenson, particularly under the basket and on the baseline.

"Niedermayer was all over the place," Dineen said. "She's a tremendous athlete."

Michelle O'Brien added 12 points, 6 steals and 6 rebounds for Stevenson, which shot 5 of 11 from the foul line.

"We have really good players, like Michelle, Anna and Kari (Moffat)," Niedermayer said. "Everybody knows about them, so I think (Libertyville) was guarding them tighter."