Kohler turns it on as Lakes rolls

When Lakes junior Jake Kohler slid on the floor after draining a long 3-pointer, he quickly turned to the stands and pointed to his dad.

“My dad told me before the game,” Kohler said, before pausing. “ . . . I don’t remember exactly what he told me, except that I needed to start making those shots.”

Kohler had been as cold as he ever had been from long range before the little pep talk from his dad seemed to get him going.

“I haven’t been hitting my shot at all lately,” Kohler said. “I missed my first one tonight, but when I got the next one, everything got going from there.”

Kohler drained a 3-pointer, got fouled, made the subsequent free throw for a 4-point play and went from ice cold to red hot — all at the expense of rival and host Antioch.

Kohler’s 3-pointer was part of his 15-point second half output as Lakes broke away from Antioch and won 54-35 Saturday night in a North Suburban Prairie Division contest. The win gives the Eagles a 3-0 start in the division (they’re 6-3 overall) while Antioch suffered its third loss in a row and fell to 1-6 overall and 0-2 in league play.

“At halftime coach (Chris Snyder) erased the entire board and wrote two numbers — our free throws and our shots,” Kohler said. “He said, ‘Somebody step up and hit the shots.’ ”

Along with Kohler, the entire Lakes team hit shots while Antioch simply couldn’t find its way to the basket. The Eagles held the Sequoits scoreless in the third quarter after Antioch had cut the lead to 24-22 at halftime.

“We have yet to play 32 minutes this season,” said Antioch coach Jim White. “I felt at half that we had gotten the lull out of the way after a bad first four minutes. Unfortunately for us, it was the entire third quarter.”

Lakes blew the game open with an 11-0 third quarter and led 38-22 before a bucket from William Waschow ended the drought with 5:22 left. Waschow led all scorers with 16 points.

“That’s the one thing that we have tried to stress is defense,” Snyder said. “We finally started to get some offense going in the fourth quarter, but we know that our defense will always be there, and it was tonight.”

Lakes held Antioch to 12 field goals and forced 27 turnovers.

Senior Justin Schneider produced 10 points, 7rebounds and 6 blocks for Lakes.