Lake Forest downs Warren
Jataia Harris got her hand on the basketball several times causing havoc on defense throughout the game for Warren and almost brought her team back late in the fourth quarter. Her efforts for the Blue Devils seems to be one of many reasons why the team had won four of its last five games coming into Monday night.
However, Warren couldn't pull off the upset in losing to host Lake Forest 37-30 in a North Suburban Conference girls basketball game that was made up from last Tuesday's cancellation for extremely cold weather.
With the win, Lake Forest (23-6,10-3) pulls into a tie with Libertyville in the NSC race with one game left on the schedule Wednesday night. The Scouts finish up with Zion-Benton and the Wildcats will play Mundelein.
On Monday, Harris had 4 steals in the contest that helped bring the Blue Devils (9-17, 5-8) within 2 points, 31-29, with 5:14 remaining on a steal and layup.
"It was pretty big and I was hoping that I make it," said Harris, who had a team-high 7 points. "After that, I wanted to keep the energy up and get more steals. It was kind of help from the team too."
Lake Forest took over the rest of the way scoring 6 of the next 7 points pulling out the 7-point victory.
"It was tough and Warren is in our regional (next week)," Lake Forest coach Kyle Wilhelm said. "It will be interesting. Warren has been playing really well and has won some good games lately. The way they've been playing, they have stayed with some teams like Lake Zurich. It wasn't that we took them lightly, having them as a first round matchup (regional). Not anyone wants to see right now."
Warren came out with a strong start hitting 5 of 7 shots and led 10-4 after the opening quarter.
But Lake Forest recovered to take a 17-16 lead going into halftime.
The Scouts' Halle Douglass scored 8 of her game-high 18 points including a couple of 3-pointers in the third quarter that pushed the lead out to 27-18 with 2:40 left.
"We knew this would be a tough game and we had to fight hard," Douglass said. "Going into the third quarter, we had to get some energy going and get some shots going in. We were keeping things together and working together to pull away. I was just determined to make a play and wanted to make something happen."
Warren closed the gap and trailed 28-21 going into the final quarter.
Macy Kocen (7 points) started by hitting back-to-back 3s that tied the game at 27-27.
But the Scouts scored on two straight possessions that bumped the lead up for good as Douglass made a lay up for a 31-27 lead with 5:48 left.
The Blue Devils had their chances in the remaining minutes but some shots wouldn't fall their way.
"I thought we played well enough to win, but we didn't make enough shots to win," Warren coach John Stanczykiewicz said. "We've really come miles and miles from where we were at the beginning of the season. We took one of the best teams in Lake County almost to the last minute. We've gotten much better. We just needed to make a few more shots against a really good team on their home floor."