Carroll’s career night helps Lake Zurich knock out Rolling Meadows

No. 3-seeded host Lake Zurich was ready for its Class 4A regional championship game against No. 6-seeded Rolling Meadows Friday night as the Bears never trailed in winning their 10th regional crown in school history.

Lake Zurich (22-8) never gave the Mustangs (22-10) much breathing room. Senior Ryan Carroll scored 13 of his career-high 24 points in the first half to help give the Bears a 31-24 lead at the intermission.

From there, Lake Zurich built its biggest lead at 50-34 on a driving basket by Connor Strauss with 5:50 to play on its way to a 61-45 victory. The Bears will face No. 2-seed Palatine in the Elgin sectional semifinals at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Rolling Meadows stayed within striking distance as Jack Duffer (team-high 13 points) scored on a drive to cut the lead to 33-29 with 4:58 left in the third quarter.

But Lake Zurich put together an 11-3 surge. A free throw by Adrian Riep made the score 44-32 entering the fourth quarter.

“No. 5 (Carroll) did a really nice job stepping up his game tonight. He played really well, and they did a really nice job defensively on us,” said Rolling Meadows coach Kevin Katovich. “I'm really proud of our kids. All season they battled and things didn't necessarily go our way tonight. But a lot of that had to do with what Lake Zurich was doing.”

Besides Carroll, the Bears got a strong game from 6-foot-8 Anton Strelnikov with 15 points and Strauss with 11. The Mustangs' balanced scoring had Gavin Escobedo scoring 10 points, Lazar Lazarevic with 9 points, and Ian Miletic with 8 points. Nick Popovic added 6 points for Lake Zurich.

“He (Carroll) was awesome. He played like a senior who didn't want to go home and didn't want this to be his last game,” said Lake Zurich coach Terry Coughlin. “Our scout team prepared us so well for today that they deserve a game ball for what they did and how they prepared our guys.”

After playing his role for the entire season, Carroll was ready to do whatever it took to get the win.

“I just wanted to win. I didn't really care if I shot zero shots or if I shot 20 shots. I wanted to take whatever the defense was giving me,” said Carroll. “The whole week in practice we were focusing on defense and once we got the lead we took some more shots and made it tough for them to come back.”