Libertyville takes control as Grant pays a visit

It was surreal for Grant coach Kathie Swanson to be on the visitor's bench.

Swanson and the Bulldogs were indeed the visitors on Wednesday night at Libertyville. But Libertyville was Swanson's home for seven years. As the Wildcats' head coach from 2005 to 2012, she experienced tremendous success from the other bench, the home bench. She led Libertyville to three North Suburban Conference championships in a row, two regionals in a row and five holiday tournament championships in a row.

"We had a lot of success here," Swanson said. "There are a lot of really good memories here for me."

Although, she might not rank her latest experience at Libertyville very high on that list. Grant was overwhelmed by the Wildcats right out of the box and wound up suffering a 57-36 North Suburban Conference crossover defeat. The Bulldogs, missing two of their top players in Taylor Drake and Ally Mahinay, were down 22-7 by the end of the first quarter and down 40-13 at halftime.

"We had a rough start," said Swanson, who remembers the current Libertyville players as middle schoolers when they attended her summer camps. "We didn't rebound really well and they got a lot of second chances. And we also didn't defend well. We had some people doing the right thing and some were not. We didn't have the continuity. We weren't consistent."

Consistency has been at the top of Libertyville's priority list since the holiday break began.

The Wildcats won the Mundelein holiday tournament with a perfect 4-0 record and were anxious to keep their momentum going into the start of the New Year.

"Our primary goal today was to play well out of the holiday break," said Libertyville coach Greg Pedersen, an assistant under Swanson. "Last year, we felt like it took us a game and a half to really get going after the break. We had a couple of extra practice sessions (around New Year's) where the kids came in and put time in and got themselves ready and we feel like we haven't missed a beat.

"We felt that the worst time in the world for us to have time off was after we won four in a row at the holiday tournament. It would have been a really long layoff (without the extra sessions). We wanted to keep things going and stay consistent and we've responded really well."

Caroline Frea topped Libertyville with 16 points. She scored 12 points in the first half.

"I think the key was just everyone contributing offensively and defensively and we got off to a really good start," Frea said. "It was really important that we won that holiday tournament because we started off with a poor record (1-4), but we gained confidence in that tournament. We really clicked as a team and being able to carry that over into today's game helped a lot and showed that we are more confident now."

Claire Keefe (12 points) also scored in double-figures for Libertyville, which got points out of 11 players.

For Grant, Mallory Harrity was essentially a one-woman show. She scored a game-high 22 points. Of the Bulldogs' 10 total field goals, she had eight.

"We just lost energy after one defensive stop didn't go well," said Harrity, whose 22 points was a career-high. "I was just trying to push myself and finish my shots in this game."