Grayslake Central rolls into regional title game

It was a lengthy trip, 90 minutes from home for Grayslake Central, in opening its boys basketball postseason. Maybe the bus ride or waiting around had something to do with the way the Rams came out to play.

They may have needed a bit of energy getting started but once they did, they took over in a big way.

Fifth-seeded Grayslake Central rolled past No. 12 seed Northside Prep 57-33 in the Class 3A regional semifinal at St. Patrick in Chicago on Tuesday night.

Grant Hardy led the way for the Rams with 14 points, along with three monster dunks, 12 rebounds and a couple of blocked shots while Daniel Guckenberger shared high-team scoring honors, also with 14 points, and pulled down 9 boards.

"It's a victory," said Grayslake Central coach Kosta Kougias, who saw his team improve to 16-13. "Northside (14-12) did a great job disrupting us and I thought the 1-3-1 gave us some trouble because they were playing really hard with it. We had to match that intensity and that's what happened. Start of that second quarter, we executed our offense better and made more urgent cuts. Overall, there's no ugly wins in February. We're excited for the next step. I thought we did some nice things and some bad things. We've got two days to go home, watch film and figure it out."

Grayslake Central will next play host and fourth-seeded St. Patrick (19-10) in the regional final at 7 p.m. on Friday.

The Shamrocks bounced past Foreman 78-24 in the other semifinal Tuesday.

The Rams jumped out to a 12-8 lead after the first quarter. Then they had an 18-13 advantage midway through the second quarter. But Grayslake Central started to pull away with a 9-2 run that closed out the half for a 27-15 lead at the break.

"I really didn't shoot that well but made a number of free throws," said Guckenberger, who had 8 points in the second quarter and dropped in 4 free throws. "We were able to get out of here with a win. We had to get warmed up and get ready to play. We just have to come out laser-focused and that's key for us."

Grayslake Central opened the third with an 8-2 run that extended the lead to 35-17 lead, and held a 40-25 margin going into the final quarter.

The Rams had a big margin of rebounds over Northside Prep, 37-20.

"Rebounding is important, without rebounds your not going to win games," Hardy said. "I thought we were flat in the first half. As team, we can't be like that. If we come out like that Friday, we will get blown out. I thought we picked it up in the second half. But we need to come out with high energy."