Grayslake Central opens new season by routing Lakes

Last year, Grayslake Central's girls basketball team made a historic run to the Class 3A supersectional before it was stopped by Montini.

Kate Bullman led the way for the Rams and has now moved on, playing college basketball at Illinois State University.

Grayslake Central still has a pretty good group returning with seven players back led by MK Drevline, who has committed to Denison University in Ohio.

The Rams opened their season on a winning note Tuesday with a 66-22 victory over Lakes in the Northern Lake County Conference opener.

"It's nice to play," Grayslake Central coach Steve Ikenn said. "If anything there's something to prove, you can't take anything for granted. This is it and we weren't sure if we were going to have a season. It's a joy on their faces coming to practices every day. It's just great to be back together again.

"We do have a completely different look, we'll see where things go, this was only our first game. We've barely been practicing for two weeks. We have to see where we develop and build chemistry. We do have some talented people and some underclassmen."

Drevline scored the first Rams' points on her first shot with a 3-pointer from the wing that felt like a long time coming.

"I've been waiting for so long and getting our hopes up," Drevline said. "Maybe, the season was in question. Just so happy to be back here. Making the first basket, it was like the weight taken off my shoulders and a great start to the game."

The Rams jumped out to a 27-1 lead after the first quarter and led 42-10 by the break.

Mia Lennartz led the way with 12 points, Drevline added 10 and freshman Tahj Bloom also had 10 points, 10 rebounds and 7 steals.

Lakes was glad to have an opportunity to play for its first time out on the court.

"It's a smile in class and we got shoes on the court," Lakes coach Brian Phelan said. "That's a win right there. Just a week ago this was a dream. So, it was nice to have a reality game. We just tried to keep things simple and we did that. Central was a well-oiled machine in the conference going through their stuff. We had had just seven days of practice. I thought as the game went on we saw some team improvement. We just have to get better."