Lake Forest stops Stevenson

The blood from Carter Bass’ nose dripped onto his leg and then splashed onto Stevenson’s floor.

Gauze stopped the bleeding, and then Bass and his Lake Forest basketball teammates stopped their own bleeding, while also delivering pain to the North Suburban Conference Lake Division leaders Friday night.

Thomas Durrett scored 15 points, 6-foot-7 freshman Evan Boudreaux produced his fifth double-double (10 points, 13 rebounds), and the Scouts closed the game with a 14-2 run to stun host Stevenson 53-45.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Lake Forest coach Phil LaScala said after his Scouts improved to 6-7 and 1-3 in the NSC Lake. “We’ve played a lot of close games this year and just haven’t gotten over the hump as far as the last three minutes of the game. Today we finally finished.”

Mike Fleming sank four 3-pointers and scored a game-high 17 points for Stevenson (10-3, 3-1), which went up 40-33 on Matt Morrissey’s 3 with 6:08 left in the fourth.

As Boudreaux muscled inside, scored and was fouled to pull Lake Forest even at 43-43 with 2:37 to go, Bass crashed under the basket and started bleeding profusely from his nose.

LaScala called on George Quall to replace Bass. Less than a minute later, a double-teamed Durrett shoveled a pass to Quall, who thought twice about taking a wide-open 3-pointer from the right wing before taking it and hitting nothing but net with 1:47 left to break the tie.

“I was a little shocked that I was that open,” Quall said.

“He’s fearless,” LaScala said of his junior guard. “He plays with a lot of confidence.

“We almost pulled it out to run a set,” LaScala added. “I was almost yelling at him to pull it out, but he was so wide open. He was aggressive and shot it. I’m glad he did.”

Durrett then banked in a 10-footer and Luke Streppa hit 3 of 4 free throws down the stretch for the Scouts.

Danny Nowak’s second 3-pointer, with 4:09 left, had put Stevenson ahead 43-39. But it was the Patriots’ last field goal.

“We just kind of fell apart,” Stevenson coach Pat Ambrose said. “Give Lake Forest credit. They played a little bit harder defense, were able to move the ball and take advantage of some of their strengths.”

The 14-year-old Boudreaux, who doesn’t look nor play like a boy his age, was a force inside. He scored all 4 of his field goals in the final quarter.

“We’ve been really close all year,” Boudreaux said. “This week we worked really hard in practice, and it finally paid off. It feels so good to pull off the win.”

Led by 6-8 Sam Downey’s 12 points on 6-of-8 shooting, Lake Forest got 22 points from its bench.

“Stevenson’s a good team and our coaches did a good job of preparing us this week,” said Quall, who had 5 points. “A lot of my teammates, like (Boudreaux), draw a lot of attention. When they’re covered, it leaves a lot of people open.”

Morrissey provided a spark for Stevenson coming off the bench, scoring 9 points and hustling for 8 rebounds. The Patriots finished the first half with an 8-0 run to lead 19-17 and held a 34-31 advantage after three.

“A lead that we get on our home floor we should be able to handle,” Ambrose said. “We took some bad shots and then didn’t get any stops.”