LHS Sophomores dominated Buffalo Grove, 45-32, at the Prospect Tournament on Saturday morning. Libertyville advanced their record to 3-1 while Buffalo Grove dropped to 2-2 even. The Wildcats’ defense led the way.
Libertyville’s man to man defense locked down the Bison and only allowed points off of free throws in the first quarter. Buffalo Grove struggled inside the paint with Libertyville’s tall freshmen, 6’4″ Aidyn Boone and 6’3″Cole Bonder (6’6″ with the afro). Buffalo Grove had to pull their starting forward Aiden Romanski who raked in 2 fouls halfway through the first quarter, setting up a Wildcat offensive run. Libertyville found their big men down low, when Boone executed a drop step for a power layup and Cole Bonder completed a three point play when he was fouled after a layup. With two seconds left, Libertyville found Brett Scheuneman for a 15 foot baseline jumper, giving the Cats a 15-5 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Midway through the second quarter, David Van Hoy popped Buffalo Grove’s first field goal of the game. George Shiakallis had a big second quarter for the Bison, scoring two field goals and shutting down Liberyville’s team captain, John Graham. Shiakallis pressured Graham to loft up three pointers that hit nothing but unsuspecting air molecules. The star from St. Joe’s uncharacteristically struggled and was unable to reach out to Nolan Graham to bail him out as he did against St. Gilbert in the 2018 conference final (evidence below). Asked to comment on his performance after today’s game, Graham headed for the bus before uttering, “Uhhh. I have to go.”
Buffalo Grove came out strong in the second half to cut the lead to less than ten points. They successfully shut down red hot guard Jack Huber who had torched York with five second half threes on Friday. The freshmen was held to four points today. However, Buffalo Grove was unable to handle Libertyville’s Cole Bonder and Ayden Boone in the low post who combined for 19 points to seal the win. Bison coach T.J Brooks observed, “We tried to deny the entry pass to their big men and force the ball to the help side. We needed to front them more in the low post. It wasn’t good enough today, and we’ll play them again.”
Buffalo Grove steals a second quarter pass
