Boys basketball: Wegrzyn, Libertyville knock off Stevenson

Libertyville senior Bryce Wegrzyn took the floor Wednesday night, his birthday, as the Wildcats hosted conference foe, the Stevenson Patriots.

For Wegrzyn, the start to the contest far from made his birthday wishlist; the 6-foot-8 forward finished the opening half with four points.

Despite the slow start, Libertyville clamped down on the defensive end to take a 30-22 lead into the break. From there, it was all Wegrzyn.

“My goal was to dominate down there,” said Wegrzyn, who was critical of his own first half performance. “If I drew two (defenders), look to see if there’s a kick and if I didn’t, go score.”

Dominate, he did. Wegrzyn exploded for 19 second half points, five rebounds and an assist as the Wildcat (3-3, 2-0) lead never shrunk below seven in the final 16 minutes on the way to a 64-50 North Suburban Conference victory.

Defensive intensity forced multiple Stevenson (4-2, 1-1) turnovers in the game’s opening frame as Libertyville jumped out to a 16-8 lead.

“Today, our guys stuck with the game plan,” said Libertyville coach Brian Zyrkowski. “We challenged them defensively and I thought we stepped up as a team defensively, to leave that team to stay 50 and under is a huge accomplishment.”

On the offensive end, senior guard Ben Kristopher electrified the home crowd with a pair of three-point makes swishing through the nylon.

“It feels great,” Kristopher said. “I wasn’t shooting well in the first few games but it was good to get some shots in.”

Stevenson senior guard Donovan Williams swiped the rock and finished on the other end to cut the Wildcats’ lead to six in the second quarter. He finished with 10 points for the Patriots.

But just as the Patriots appeared to be finding some rhythm entering the half, with the deficit just five, Kristopher drilled a last-second 3-pointer to push it back up to eight.

Stevenson guard Rocco Pagliocca and forward Cohen Ottaviano finished with 14 and 10 points, respectively.

Unfortunately for Stevenson, Wegrzyn was simply too much to handle as the game wore on. The big man finished 9 of 14 at the charity stripe and induced a pair of flop warnings, the second of which resulted in a technical foul, and two more free throws.

“At the end, we gotta make free throws, we gotta rebound and we gotta get stops,” Zyrkowski said. “I thought our guys did a great job of that tonight.”