Deerfield shoots down Lakes

The shot, a half-courter that a street clothes-wearing Andrew Spencer of Lakes’ boys basketball team banked in during some halftime fun, was bettered only by the group shot.

After Deerfield’s girls basketball team held off host Lakes 45-40 in a nonconference game Wednesday night, the victorious players mugged for a photo on the court with Spencer, his basketball teammates and other spirited Lakes student-fans.

Spencer and his buddies, mind you, had been firing verbal shots at the opposing team all night.

Fun stuff. Fun night.

“They were trying to annoy us the whole game,” said Deerfield senior guard Liz Yucknut, smiling. “We were loving it. We’ve never had that many fans at a game. We were taking a team picture and we were like, ‘Hey, why don’t we have our No. 1 fans in there?’ ... Great time.”

“I think they just appreciated good fans at a good girls basketball game,” Deerfield coach Mike Muldrow said of his players. “I’m glad they were up for it. It shows this is all in good spirit.”

It hasn’t been a particularly good season for Deerfield. But behind Yucknut’s game-high 20 points and 4 steals and Maddie Hagaman’s 13 rebounds, the Warriors overcame a slow start to win for just the fifth time.

Deerfield (5-16) appeared to put the game out of reach when Hagaman hit a free throw to make it 44-37 with 41 seconds left, but Lakes’ Amanda Smith sank a 3-pointer, and the Eagles’ Nicole Mogged stole an inbounds pass.

“Nicole’s a great defender,” Lakes coach Pete Schneider said. “She’s got a huge heart. If she gets beat, she’s going to be right back in your face within seconds.”

Lakes (7-11) couldn’t capitalize on Mogged’s swipe, however, nor could the Eagles hit a shot down the stretch, as they lost for the third time in four games since the start of the new year.

Another free throw by Hagaman (5 points) finished the scoring.

“It was a fun game,” Muldrow said. “I thought their coach did an outstanding job. That was fun all the way down to the wire. They put themselves in a great position to come back.”

Lakes had bolted to a 7-0 lead in the game’s first three minutes thanks to Ashlee Cunningham’s 3-pointer, Mogged’s 17-foot jumper and Cunningham’s driving layup.

“We had a little setback because we weren’t expecting that,” said Yucknut, who plans to play at Washington University in St. Louis. “We definitely picked each other up from that point on. We knew that we really had to pick up the effort. It was a complete, team effort.”

Deerfield’s Samara Haas scored all 6 of her points in the second quarter, helping the Warriors outscore the Eagles 19-11 in the second quarter to lead 25-21 at halftime.

Despite Yucknut draining a long 3, banking in a tough-angle 15-footer and scoring 9 points in the third, Lakes pulled within 36-33 entering the fourth.

The Eagles, however, shot 2 of 14 from the floor in the final quarter.

Cunningham led Lakes with 9 points, despite, like teammate Terese McMahon, sitting a good chunk of the first half with 2 fouls. The defense-first Mogged and sub Heather Hurlbut had 7 points apiece.

“Defensively, we’ve gotten better,” Schneider said. “But we’re being challenged offensively. We got to get some consistency.”