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Enright leads Mundelein past Libertyville

Another typical Libertyville-Mundelein boys basketball matchup provided another typical performance from Mundelein junior Conor Enright.

With his team mired in foul trouble and a stingy Libertyville defense unrelenting, Enright did, what, well what Enright does.

The Mustangs chose to burn down the clock to protect Enright, Jack Bikus, and Sam Atade - each playing with 3 fouls or more, by pulling the ball out and burning clock. It almost worked as Mundelein burned off over 2 minutes of clock. But a turnover spoiled the plan.

Just as quickly as the Mustangs lost the ball, they got it right back. That's where Enright took center stage. Taking the inbounds pass from Chris Rooney, Enright took one dribble past the "M" at midcourt and drained his first bucket of the second half, a 3-pointer, to close the third quarter.

That kind of drama is what has become common place from the Drake-bound Enright and it turned out to be the spark the Mustangs needed. Mundelein outscored the visiting Wildcats 8-2 to end the third and start the fourth en route to a 70-55 win in a North Suburban Conference battle.

"I guess I practice it enough just kind of messing around in practice," said Enright. "But I have confidence in myself to shoot those shots."

Libertyville had trimmed the Mundelein lead to 44-40 with 2:20 to go on a pair of free throws from Patrick Graham. Graham led the Wildcats with 16 points and added 9 rebounds.

"I am really proud of our team," Libertyville coach Brian Zyrkowski said. "Patrick was everywhere for us tonight."

The 7-2 run pulled Libertyville as close as it would get the rest of the night. Set up the key stretch for Mundelein.

"Initially, we pulled it out because of our foul trouble," Mundelein coach Matt Badgley said. "Then we were just trying to get to the third quarter because then your foul trouble starts to even out."

Once in the fourth quarter Mundelein (24-4, 10-2) made its way to the foul line and simply didn't miss. The Mustangs hit 9 of 10 from the foul line in the final quarter, building the margin to as big as 18 points.

"We started to have (Mundelein) on the ropes there in the third quarter," Zyrkowski said. "We had that one key stop, then we turned over and you add in the really nice shot by Conor and that turned the momentum their way."

Libertyville (18-9, 7-5) went toe-to-toe with Mundelein in the first half with Josh Steinhaus (8 points) and Blake Ellingson (12 points) pacing the Libertyville attack. Each time Mundelein would pull away, the Wildcats had an answer.

The Wildcats closed the first half to within 33-29 only to see Mundelein open the second half on a 7-2 burst.

"I am proud of these guys," Zyrkowski said. "This was a very physical game which is typical for a Mundelein-Libertyville game. This was important to these guys and you can see the disappointment in the locker room."

Enright truck for 12 of his 19 points in the second half, while junior Scottie Ebube was a force down low for Mundelein scoring 18 points and hauling in 9 boards to go with 4 blocked shots. Trey Baker added 12 points including a key stretch in the third quarter where he scored 7 straight points for Mundelein.

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