Girls basketball: Maine South pulls away from Libertyville, finishes perfect BG tourney
Libertyville's girls basketball team showed some flashes of the kind of squad it is capable of being Saturday afternoon, but in the end the Wildcats were unable to keep up with state-power Maine South at the Buffalo Grove Classic Thanksgiving Tournament.
Libertyville (3-2) jumped ahead of the Hawks (5-0) with a quick 7-0 lead only to see Maine South go on a 17-2 run to take a 17-9 lead after one quarter.
The Wildcats outscored the Hawks 9-8 in the second quarter to trail 25-18 at halftime before a free throw by Madison Sears cut the lead to 25-22 early in the third quarter.
But the remainder of the contest was completely dominated by Maine South as it took a 40-26 advantage into the fourth quarter before rolling to an easy 60-28 victory to capture the tourney title.
The Hawks had three players named to the all-tournament team, including Cornell-bound Ally Pape (12 points), Katie Barker (11 points, 6 rebounds, 6 steals, 4 assists), and Asia Kobylarczyk (7 points, 5 steals, 4 rebounds, 4 assists).
Some tenacious, trapping defense really aided Maine South as Libertyville committed 29 turnovers. The Hawks got their fast break going in the second half.
A fast-break basket by Kobylarczyk boosted the Hawks' lead to 42-26 with 7:11 to play before an inside hoop by teammate Hayden Fahy (11 points) boosted the lead to 44-26.
"Being able to communicate during the timeouts and being able to reset and regroup really helped us," said Pape. "Libertyville is a really good team and they are super aggressive, but we were able to get a really big lead at the end."
Libertyville sophomore Lily Fisher (5 points) and senior teammate Elinor Lindal (4 points) were named to the all-tournament team while teammates Madison Sears and Sophia Swanson scored 5 points apiece. Maine South's Victoria Marchuk had 5 points while teammate Amelia Fernandez added 4 points.
"Libertyville is very good, and the score is not indicative of how close the game was," said Maine South coach Jeff Hamann. "After Libertyville cut it to 25-22 our kids didn't get rattled and it started with some really aggressive defense that causes problems for some teams."
There was a lot of substitutions in the final quarter when the final outcome was out of reach for the Wildcats.
"There was a fast-break play and they just went on a flurry and I'm not surprised they were able to do that," said Libertyville coach Greg Pedersen. "We did a good job for about three quarters, but they took us out of the rhythm we like. They are really good and talented, they press well, and we didn't handle the ball well."