Libertyville's Crow reaches 1,000 in win over Rolling Meadows

Libertyville senior Lydia Crow still vividly remembers a nonconference game during her freshman year against Deerfield.

It was a special moment for her teammate Claire Keefe, who now plays for DePauw University in Greencastle, IN.

"When I saw Claire hit her 1,000th point, I said, 'Wow, that's really cool. I want to do that,' " Crow said.

Fast forward to Saturday afternoon's matinee game of the third annual Libertyville Winter Tournament, and guess what?

Crow did it.

And how's this? Her coach Greg Pedersen says she has become a full player and the best part of her game was defense on Saturday.

So how did Crow hit the magic number?

She made a steal and swept to the basket for a layup, giving her 1,001 points for her career and a comfortable 48-29 lead over Rolling Meadows.

The Wildcats (9-4, 3-0) went on to post a 50-34 triumph to win their own pool over the Mustangs (8-5, 2-1). Libertyville will try to defend its title on Thursday when it faces Cary Grove at 2:30 p.m.

"It feels really good and I have really good teammates who helped me do this," said Crow, who will play at Wisconsin-Oshkosh. "Obviously, I couldn't have done it without them. This program has really helped me through everything and supported me.

"And it was really nice to get this win. I can't wait for the championship. Hopefully, we can come out with a win in that, too."

Crow helped the Wildcats win this one with her play on both sides of the court.

With her team nursing a 7-6 lead, Crow (11 points) hit her first of three 3-pointers to ignite a 20-0 run.

After a driving bank shot by senior Margaret Buchert (11 points) and a putback of her own shot by junior Marianna Morrissey (9 points), Crow's second 3-pointer just beat the first-quarter buzzer making it 17-6.

The Wildcats were hardly through as they opened the second quarter with 10 straight points, including 3-pointers from Buchert and Morrissey.

"I thought what hurt is that they (Libertyville) did a great job getting offensive rebounds and loose balls at the start," said Meadows coach Ryan Kirkorsky. "After that, we were a lot tougher the rest of the way."

The Mustangs got to within 36-26 when sophomore Madi Niedbala fired home a 3-pointer with 2:34 left in the third quarter.

But that's as close as they would get.

The Wildcats went on a 12-2 run, capped by Crow's 1,001st point with 6:27 left in the fourth quarter.

Crow became the seventh player in program history to reach 1,000 points. Allison Farrington leads the list with 1,155 points, followed by Mary Munsch, 1,143, Diane Ruby 1,120, Keefe (1,109), Mary Boyes (1,067) and Sarah Weiss (1.037).

Buchert, who has more than 900 points, has a shot at joining the elite list.

"Lydia had her fair share of points her freshman year so this was definitely something we knew was fully possible," Pedersen said. "She has developed into a full player. Today, her defense started a lot of our fast breaks and I was really proud of her for that because she is not a one-dimensional player."

Bridget Rolla led Meadows with 12 points and a pair of 3-pointers while Niedbala added 10 points with one from long range. Also hitting 3-pointers were teammates Susannah Holifield, Nicole Davis and Alison Sellergren.

"I thought Bridget competed at a really high level throughout the game," Kirkorsky said. "And Madi doesn't play like a sophomore in her first year on varsity. She's just a spark every game.

"Libertyville is just a really super-talented team and they have all the pieces now with their freshman back (Emily Fisher from an injury earlier in the season). You've got to compete the whole game to stay with them."

Lauren Huber added 8 points for the Wildcats while the 5-foot-11 Fisher had 7.

Pedersen sees a lot of similarities between his team and Meadows.

"It feels like we are playing a carbon copy of our team," he said. "We are both guard heavy, we both like to shoot and we both like to play a lot of up-tempo and pressure basketball.

"We knew we would have to execute. No. 5 (Rolla) was giving us all kinds of trouble. We needed Marianna Morrissey to step up and kind of face guard her to take that away. So we were happy to hold her to no baskets in the second half. That kind of changed the tempo of the game."