Sophomores help spark Lakes to first win

It was worth the wait for the Lakes boys basketball team, which finally won its first game Saturday night.

Coach Brian Phelan brought up three sophomores and started two of them Saturday night. The new players helped produce a 52-36 road victory over Wauconda in a North Suburban Prairie Division contest.

"It's like getting the first home run of the season as a slugger," Phelan said. "Once we hit our tipping point, we'll be fine. We just had everybody play well."

Sophomores Donte Arnold-Wright (12 points) and Tanner Blain (10 points) started, and Deondre Hudson came off the bench.

"We came out and we knew we had to get a win," said Arnold-Wright, who also had 5 steals and 7 assists. "As a team, we were able to get the steals."

Lakes (1-8, 1-1) got off to a quick start, scoring the first eight points and led 18-7 after the first quarter,

The Eagles were up 27-16 at the break and led by double digits the rest of the way.

John Androus had a game-high 14 points and 8 rebounds for Lakes.

Wauconda (3-5, 0-3) got Matt Stonis in the lineup for the first time this season. Stonis, who was coming off an ankle injury, scored 10 points, while Eric Hartnett led the Bulldogs with 13 points.

"It took some time for us to get used to having (Stonis) out there," Wauconda coach Scott Luetschwager said. "Basically it was like playing the first game of the season. We had a lot of point-blank shots we missed."

The Bulldogs played without starting guard Kyle Ryan, who was out with a foot injury.