Paul, Warren stop Lake Forest

Darius Paul returned to the court Friday night after missing a game for disciplinary reasons and made an immediate impact of the positive variety.

Paul came off the bench to score 15 points and had 8 rebounds while Ramon Schultz missed his second straight game for Warren’s boys basketball team.

“I had to get running to get back into the game,” Paul said. “I need to start running again to start playing good.”

Nathan Boothe led Warren with a team-high 16 points, 7 blocked shots and 7 rebounds, and Mitch Munda scored in double figures for the third time in the last 4 games with 15 points.

The Blue Devils rallied from a 6-point deficit in the third quarter before pulling ahead of visiting Lake Forest for a 58-47 victory in a North Suburban Lake Division game in Gurnee.

Warren (7-1, 3-1) found itself trailing Lake Forest 29-23 in the first minute of the second half after Thomas Durrett scored 5 of his game-high 18 points.

The Blue Devils defense tightened up, though, forcing the Scouts into 6 of their 18 turnovers in that third quarter,

Munda had a couple steals and dropped in 9 points and Jameris Smith contributed with a couple of his 5 points as Warren went on a 20-8 third-quarter run to lead 43-37 heading into the final quarter.

“We just had some constant movement to the basket,” Munda said. “Our team had been stagnant, and that opened up more things. In the second half, we knew we had to put ball pressure on (Lake Forest’s) guards. We got turnovers and rolled from there.”

Warren continued to pull away in the final quarter and extended the lead to double digits as Boothe scored 8 of his points down the stretch.

The Blue Devils were far from satisfied with their play. Lake Forest (3-5, 0-3) out-rebounded Warren 24-22.

“We did start the fourth quarter with composure and played much better,” Warren coach Chuck Ramsey said. “We had pressure on the ball in the backcourt and it opened things up.

“But we got out-rebounded and didn’t do a good job on the boards at all. We just didn’t do the fundamentals of rebounding. We didn’t anticipate the shots well and didn’t know when the rebounds were coming.”

Lake Forest played well for most of the opening half, taking a 22-14 lead in the second quarter. The Scouts held a 24-23 advantage by halftime before things changed in the second half.

“Our team is starting to jell a bit,” Lake Forest coach Phil LaScala said. “We do have some lulls offensively — that really killed us. We had those turnovers ... that was the turning point of the game, and we couldn’t handle (Warren’s) pressure.

“We were patient and did a good job with the ball in the first half.”