Lakes charges to victory
If Justin Schneider wasn’t known as a take-charge kind of guy before, he is now.
On Tuesday, Schneider took charge … after charge, after charge, after charge.
A total of five of them, to be exact.
The 6-foot-8 senior center from Lakes repeatedly stepped into the line of fire to single-handedly bring Grayslake Central’s offense to a screeching halt. Each of the five charges he drew on defense was an emotional shot in the arm to him and his teammates as they rallied from as many as 10 points down to get a 67-62 victory over Grayslake Central on the second day of the Mundelein Thanksgiving tournament.
“When I got the first two charges, I was like ‘This is awesome.’ Then it was three and I was like, ‘Do I really have three?’ And then four and five came and it was like ‘Wow,’” said Schneider, whose five charges is a new single-game school record at Lakes. “The (previous) record might have been two for me.
“I just knew that (Grayslake Central) isn’t very deep and that it would help if I could get some of their guys into foul trouble. I just did what I could.”
But Schneider did far more than simply hold his ground in the lane.
He also led Lakes (1-1) in scoring with 15 points, and he pulled down a game-high 15 rebounds.
Still, it was the charges that everyone wanted to talk about post-game.
“It seemed like Justin took 20 charges,” said Lakes coach Chris Snyder, who also got 12 points out of Direll Clark and 10 points from Tanner Blain. “We talk about charges a lot in practice and we keep track of them. We work on how you’re supposed to rotate defensively to be in that position so you can stand there and take the hit. He did that perfectly tonight.
“When we were down by 10 (late in the second quarter), I thought the charges he took really stemmed the tide. They kind of stopped their momentum and gave us some life. Our kids were really excited about those charges. That started us going back in the right direction.”
Four of the charges that Schneider drew came in the second quarter, and coordinated with the Eagles’ trimming their 10-point deficit to just 2 points by halftime.
By then, Schneider was probably ready for a break from the pounding.
Drawing five charges can take a toll on any player, but particularly one who is coming off a serious back injury.
Schneider missed more than half of last season with multiple stress fractures in his lower back.
“I’m sure I’ll feel those charges tomorrow morning,” Schneider said with a smile. “I came in (to the season) with a chip on my shoulder because I was hurt for almost four months last year and I wanted to show that I could hang with some of the best centers in Lake County.”
As if the points, rebounds and chargers weren’t enough, Schneider did that, too.
He went toe-to-toe with one of the best returning centers in Lake County, Grayslake Central’s 6-foot-9 Casey Boyle. Boyle finished with 17 points but was constantly challenged by Schneider, especially on the boards.
Rebounding, or a lack of it, also happened to be an issue in Grayslake Central’s loss to Mundelein on Monday.
“We’re just not making that effort on the boards. We’re not strong,” said Grayslake Central coach Brian Moe, whose team is now 0-2. “It’s everyone. Rebounding is a team effort.
“If we took back half of the offensive rebounds we allowed in our first game and this game, I’m thinking we win those games. Right now, rebounding is, by far, our biggest issue.”
Scoring doesn’t seem to be an issue, though.
For the second game in a row, the Rams got double-figure scoring out of three players. Besides Boyle, Jordan Taylor scored a game-high 22 points and Tyler Smith finished with 13 points.
“When we’re attacking, we’re a really hard team to stop,” Taylor said. “But we’ve still got a lot of work to do. We really need to rebound. Rebounding, turnovers, free throws…those are the main things.”