Girls Basketball: Lake Zurich’s tight senior class getting solid results
BY BILL PEMSTEIN Contributor January 21, 2012 6:19PM
Zion-Benton's Octavia Crump (left) and Lake Zurich's Cathryne Spear dive after a loose ball. | Michael Schmidt~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: February 27, 2012 8:14AM
Here’s a salute to the Junior Bears, the basketball program that set up a group of Lake Zurich High School girls for success.
And it’s those eight seniors — guards Katherine Anderson, Maisie Cox, Gina Barbaglia, Cathryne Spear and Stephanie Schmid, along with forwards Dori Darras, Renee Wojcik and Christina Sandstedt — who are making a decided difference in the girls basketball program at Lake Zurich.
“We were all Junior Bears,” Anderson said after her team beat Zion-Benton on Saturday.
Something radical has changed at Lake Zurich. The Bears have gone from losing to winning in one season. A season ago, on the way to 19 losses, Lake Zurich dropped three contests to Zion-Benton. On Saturday, the Bears (14-8) opened up a 31-11 second-half lead on Z-B en route to a 52-43 win.
“It’s our eight seniors,” Anderson said. “It’s our senior year, and we knew we had potential. We also knew that Zion ended our season last year.”
Anderson hit a pair of free throws with six minutes to play in the first half. She didn’t score the rest of the half, yet still had more points (12) than the entire Zion-Benton squad (11) at the break. In the final 25 seconds of the first quarter, she put up six of those points on back-to-back three-pointers.
“My coach tells me to shoot,” Anderson said.
Her coach, Chris Bennett, was pleased with those three-pointers.
“Katherine ended that quarter with some huge shots,” Bennett said.
Anderson led the Bears with 16 points.
Anderson, naturally, wants to see her final high school team go far in regional play. She’s headed to Indiana University to study business, and may give intramural basketball a look.
Recap: Was this 19-game loser from 2010-11 really blowing out the state’s defending runner-up team? And on Zion-Benton’s home court? Schmid took a hint from Anderson’s first-quarter performance when she dropped in consecutive three-pointers in the last minute of the first half. It was 29-11 at intermission.
“In the first two-and-a-half quarters, we defended,” Bennett said.
The Zee-Bees made a run at the Bears in the second half. The 20-point lead shrunk in half during the third quarter. A bucket from sophomore Mallory Parsons (5 points) restored the Bears’ lead to 39-27 heading to the fourth quarter.
Z-B was within six points at 43-37 with three minutes to play. Spear’s drive to the hoop restored the lead to eight points. The senior had seven points. Darras had eight points. Schmid (6 points) and Sandstedt (5 points) helped out as well.
Sweet 16: Fans of girls basketball should get their fill at Lake Zurich on Saturday. Both the field house and main gym will be occupied by girls basketball teams the entire day and night.
The Bears will open the festivities at 10 a.m. with a game with Providence Catholic. At 2:30 p.m., LZ will take on powerful Fenwick. Also playing will be Maine West, Maine South, Trinity, Marian Catholic, New Trier, St. Charles North and Johnsburg.
Playing in the main gym only will be Barrington, Buffalo Grove, Marist and Lincoln-Way.
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