Boys Basketball: Warren pulls away from Lake Forest

Updated: December 16, 2011 10:37PM

Warren cranked up the defensive intensity after a sluggish first half and eventually put away pesky Lake Forest 58-47 on Friday in a North Suburban Conference Lake Division game.

The Scouts (3-5, 0-3) led 24-23 at halftime, but couldn’t hold up when the host No. 9 Blue Devils (7-1, 3-1) turned up the heat.

“We struggled much of the game with consistency,” said Warren coach Chuck Ramsey. “We’d make a nice play and not capitalize, or get a steal but not turn it into scores.”

Warren led 38-37 with 1:02 left in the third quarter, then used an 18-5 run to put the Scouts away.

“We started playing better on-the-ball defense,” said senior Darius Paul, who returned to the lineup after a one-game suspension. (Other team members, who were suspended for other reasons, were still not in uniform on Friday. That included sixth-man Roman Schultz.) “We started pressuring their guards like coach told us.

“Once we stepped up the pressure, we started playing better.

For the game, Paul and Mitch Munda each scored 15 points — three double-figure efforts in four outings for Munda — and Nathan Boothe lead with 16 points. He also had seven blocks.

Lake Forest got 18 points from Thomas Durrett, while point guard John Hayes added 10. Freshman power forward Evan Boudreau had eight points and five boards.

“We had some lulls offensively that really hurt us tonight,” said Phil LaScala, whose Scouts were expected to be a factor in the division race. “We had some turnovers in the second half and that was the turning point in the game. We didn’t handle their pressure.”

Still, LaScala saw some positives in the result.

“We told the kids if we play with the focus we did tonight, we’re going to improve,” he said. “Obviously, we want to win these games, but we have to get better first.”

Ramsey also knows his team must get better, with Chicago Public League powers Simeon and Curie in the same Pontiac Holiday Tournament with the Blue Devils.

“Simeon is not on our list of things to get down,” Ramsey said. “We still have to be solid as a team. We’re not there yet. We have to take care of our business. We have to grow up. We’re still not as maentally tough as we want to be.”

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