Grayslake Central finds strength in numbers

Just about everyone at Grayslake Central was a candidate.

Teachers, secretaries, on-lookers, passers-by.

The girls basketball team was in need of bodies at a recent practice, so the coaches and players went out recruiting. In the hallways.

“We wound up getting some gym teachers and coaches, people that are bigger, taller and athletic,” Grayslake Central senior forward Skyler Jessop said. “We wanted to work on how to break a really tough press so we wanted to go up against more than five people, like seven or eight, so we needed extra people and we wanted them to be big and tall.

“We figured if we could (break a press) against eight people, then it would be easier to do it against five.”

The Rams figured correctly.

Grayslake Central matter-of-factly solved Carmel’s vaunted full-court pressure defense on Tuesday night. So much so that the Corsairs took off the press in the first quarter and rarely used it for the rest of the game.

With Carmel’s bread-and-butter shelved, the Rams dictated the kind of tempo they like: slow and methodical. They got the ball inside to their post players, crashed the boards hard and pulled out a 38-31 victory over Carmel in the third round of the Blue Devil Classic holiday tournament at Warren High School.

Grayslake Central is now 11-2 overall and 3-0 in the tournament. The Rams have won 11 games in a row after losing their first two of the season.

Carmel, meanwhile, drops to 8-5.

“That was a tough one. It was a tough defensive struggle,” Grayslake Central coach Steve Ikenn said. “We worked really hard at breaking the press. It helped to know that in practice we were breaking a press against eight people. For us, the key against Carmel was to get the ball up the floor and we did that.

“If teams want to press us, hopefully we can keep handling it.”

Carmel had a tough time handling Jessop, the only Grayslake Central player to score in double figures.

She busted out of the gate, scoring 11 of her game-high 16 points in the first half. Her strong post move in the paint late in the second quarter gave Grayslake Central a comfy 23-15 halftime advantage.

“(Jessop) is so solid. She is the leader of that team,” Carmel coach Kelly Perz said. “As she goes, they go and she brings it every game. She’s a really good player. She scored (16 points) against us and she’s capable of a lot more. But she also did a lot of other things to lift her teammates up. She’s key for them and she’s on most nights, so they’re not going to lose much.”

But it’s not like the Rams can take victory for granted, and Carmel certainly reminded them of that.

The Corsairs fell behind by 10 points (25-15) early in the third quarter after Grayslake Central forward Beth Arnold hit a shot in the paint.

But then Carmel put together a 12-4 run to cut its deficit to two points heading into the fourth quarter. The Corsairs then tied the game at 31-31 three minutes into the fourth quarter.

“We tend to play better from behind for whatever reason, unfortunately,” Perz said. “We had a nice third quarter, but then we let them go on a 7-0 run in the fourth quarter and you can’t beat a good team if you let them go on a 7-0 run.”

And Grayslake Central’s 7-0 run ended the game.

Once the Corsairs tied the game at 31-31, they never scored again.

“I wasn’t nervous when they tied it up, but I wasn’t comfortable,” Ikenn said with a laugh. “But I’ll be honest, I’m never comfortable until the final horn goes off anyway.

“But no, not nervous and that’s what I told (the team) when (Carmel) tied it up. I looked at them and I said, ‘Do I look panicked?’ And they said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Right, I’m not.’ To me it just comes down to getting defensive stops, which we wound up doing.”

Grayslake Central limited Carmel to only 11 field goals while forcing 16 turnovers. Only forward Kaitlyn Lynch scored in double figures for Carmel. She had 10 points. Teammate Sarah McHugh added 8 points for the Corsairs.

Grayslake Central also got 9 points out of sophomore center Morgan Dahlstrom.