Sports
Girls Basketball: Morgan Park Outlasts Indians
Morgan Park 65, Lemont 49. Indians cut lead to seven points to start fourth quarter but can't get closer.
The Hot Read: Morgan Park stretched out the Lemont defense, draining five three-pointers in the opening half. Still, the Indians responded with a strong second quarter, outscoring the Lady Mustangs, 19-11, to only trail 31-27 at halftime.
But in the second half, the Indians could not stop Morgan Park's Gabrielle Richmond. Lemont only trailed 36-31 with 5:15 left in the third quarter, but the Lady Mustangs responded with an 8-0 run to go ahead 44-31 and never looked back.
Patch's MVP: Morgan Park's Gabrielle Richmond scored a game-high 20 points and collected a game-best eight rebounds. She scored 12 of her points in the second half.
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Key stats: The Indians committed five turnovers before Morgan Park made its first one of the ball . The Lady Mustangs made five three-pointers in the first half. Lemont's Brenna Koerner didn't have a field goal in the first half but teammate Kelsey Motto came off the bench and caught fire from three-point land, drilling four three-pointers.
Lemont leaders: Kelsey Motto (14 points), Amy Skowronski (12 points), Mykala Walton (eight points), Annie Forzley (eight points), Brenna Koerner (five rebounds).
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Morgan Park leaders: Gabrielle Richmond (20 points, eight rebounds), Kendyl Nunn (18 points), Raven Nelson (15 points).
Quoteable I: Lemont coach Bill Bozue on outscoring Morgan Park 19-11 in the second quarter: "It was a great quarter and we needed it. All season our issue has been not making baskets. We simply run the offense well and get the shots, but not make enough shots. But that quarter we made baskets and that was the difference."
Quoteable II: Morgan Park coach Thomas Johnson on the Indians' ability to prevent the Lady Mustangs from breaking the game open: "They shot very well. They had to shoot at least 60 to 65 percent. They didn't miss [anything] which was kind of surprising. We were here to scout them [Wednesday] and they got a lot of backdoors and looked more for that and we didn't want to overplay so they same thing would happen to us. They played well."
Quoteable III: Lemont senior Brenna Koerner on the match-up: "We knew they were going to be tough with them ranked so high. We saw them demolish (Evergreen Park on Wednesday). I thought we did a good job, though. I wish we could've come back, but it didn't happen."
Team records: Lemont: 15-13; Morgan Park, 25-4.
