On Wednesday, Dec 3, the Lake Forest Scouts took a trip west to face off against their conference rivals, the Wildcats. Libertyville came into this game with a 1-2 record; Lake Forest had a similar record despite playing one more game at 2-2. Both teams were pretty evenly matched and hungry for a win over the other.
The Wildcats started off slow, going down eight points early on. Starting Senior point guard Dominic Mordini (4) was able to get the Scouts offense humming quickly scoring four of their eight points. However, Senior Ben Kristopher (3) jumpstarted the offense for Libertyville by drawing a foul and making both free throws.
Lake Forest went back up two to make it 10-2 Scouts. And that stayed the same until 5:06 left in the first quarter when Senior Bryce Wegrzyn (32) dished out a pass while falling out of bounds to Sophomore Nick Baker (4) for a corner three cutting the lead down to five.
The Cats offense started to look like their normal selves again, going on a 13-6 run to end the first quarter after previously being down eight.
From that point onward Libertyville took that momentum and ran with it. Only giving up the lead once the rest of the game, despite the monster 30 point performance from Mordini (4). Mordini was responsible for over half of Lake Forest’s points, compared to the Wildcats where the wealth was distributed amongst the most players.
Specifically Ben Kristopher (3), Nick Baker (4), Sophomore Logan Boggs (22) all had at least ten points or more. Going into the fourth quarter it was a two possession game with the Cats five points ahead of the scouts and scored quickly to make it a seven point lead. But back-to-back spectacular plays from Mordini (4) and John White (21) quickly cut down the lead to two points.
This same cycle of cutting the lead back down and rebuilding it back up continued throughout the fourth quarter until about a minute left in regulation when Libertyville came up with some decisive stands on defense and clutch buckets from Senior Jack Cenar (25) and Senior Trevor Wallace (2) essentially iced the game away as a win for Libertyville.
Overall, it was a hard fought win for the Wildcats with good performances on both sides of the ball as well as a great start to conference play against their neighboring rival.
The Wildcats are back at home Dec 10 facing off against another conference rival, the Stevenson Patriots.
