Lake's hard week results in a big league win

It was as if Lake girls basketball team was being initiated the hard way into the Northern Buckeye Conference, but Lake is a charter member of the league.

In one week (Jan. 12-16), Lake had to face off with three of the best teams the NBC had to offer, and the Flyers came out smiling once, but it was a big “once.” Lake remains the only league team to defeat Elmwood, unless Woodmore was able to do it in their big match-up on Thursday.

On Tuesday Lake lost to Woodmore, 62-51, defeated Elmwood 43-39 on Thursday, and lost to Eastwood 60-45 on Saturday.

“That week was a tough week for us, playing Woodmore, Elmwood and then Eastwood in a three-game five-day stretch,” Lake coach Joe Nowak said. “Overall, in the week I was happy with the way we did things the way we were supposed to do, we just lost on Tuesday and Saturday, but Thursday against Elmwood we did alright. 

“The first time we played Elmwood (62-48 Royals victory) we didn’t necessarily play our best, and honestly, I think you have to credit Elmwood for knocking us off our game the first time, which I think we knew we could flip the script on them a little bit the second time around. I think the girls wanted to play them, they were excited to play them, and I credit the girls — they executed the game plan.”

Behind the play of 6-0 senior playmaker Brooklyn Thrash, the Royals scored 21 fourth quarter points and nearly took the lead back. 

“It helped that Thrash struggled for the first three quarters. But I like to think just that they knocked us out of our game the first time we played them, and that our defense and our game plan had something to do with that (the second game). You know, she (Thrash) was going to wake up eventually and things were going to hit, and they eventually did. She is certainly a capable player of doing stuff like that, but we were fortunate enough that we had built a big enough lead through three quarters that she ran out of time, I guess,” Nowak said.

Nowak said the secret was not just focusing on Thrash, but on the rest of the Royals, which includes two other players six feet or taller who can dominate inside and a couple sharp-shooting guards who can handle the ball.

“Brooklyn Thrash demands so much attention from defenses, and they have so much size inside that when their role players are hitting shots when they are open, they are hard to beat,” Nowak said. “That is what happened the first time around, but the second time that was one of our focal points to try to frustrate their role players.”

When the Royals made their push in the final stanza, credit Lake 5-foot-11 junior Brigid Enright, who is averaging 6.4 points, 6.5 rebounds, and has over three deflections, blocks two shots and over one assist per game, to make the plays on defense that sealed the victory.

“Brigid Enright had a couple nice plays down the stretch against Elmwood when they were making a push. It was a two-point game, off a missed free throw, she stole the ball and flipped it right to (5-11) Hayley (St. John) to push it to four, and then she had another steal the very next play down the floor. So she’s been coming up strong for us and she’s put in a ton of work from just the last year, let alone the three years she has been a player for us,” Nowak said.

Lake closes its regular season at North Baltimore next Tuesday, travels to Genoa on Thursday and then hosts Eastwood in a rematch on Saturday.