Lyons Township’s girls basketball team has lost its share of games this year. However, none of them probably hurt as much as its 48-47 loss to visiting Glenbard West last Saturday night.
That’s because the Lions had several opportunities to win the game, but failed to take advantage of every chance the Hilltoppers gave them.
The loss dropped LT to 2-9 in the West Suburban Conference Silver Division, while the Hilltoppers remained in second place at 6-3. Glenbard West won despite making only 9 of 19 free throws in the fourth quarter.
The Hilltoppers gave LT (7-20) every chance to win, missing four straight free throws with less than a minute to go. However, the Lions were only able to get one bucket from Olya Cholewick before Molly Barry hit a three with 14 seconds to go to pull LT within one.
Glenbard West (12-13, 6-3) then again missed a pair of free throws with 10 seconds left, but the Lions missed a last-second shot in falling for the eighth time in their last nine games.
The Hilltoppers also committed 20 turnovers, but luckily for them, LT only scored eight points at the other end off of them.
“We’ve been hot and cold (on our free throws) and today we were cold,” Glenbard West coach Mike Hofland said. “It’s something we’ll work on in the next couple of games.
“We’re going without our two best players right now in (Nicole) Hazemi and (Kathryn) Lux (both of whom were injured against York about a month ago). We’re hoping to get them back next week, so to come in here and get a win without them on their Senior Night is special.”
The Hilltppers went up 2-0 early, but watched as LT scored the next six points. From there, however, the Hilltoppers scored nine straight points to take an 11-6 lead. They never trailed again, although LT got within one or two on several occasions.
“We did a nice job overall,” Hofland said. “What hurt us in the beginning of the year was turnovers and not protecting the basketball. We still had turnovers tonight, but tonight we were getting some time off the clock. We wanted to shorten the game against them with Lux and Hazemi out.
“Despite their record, LT’s got some nice players and they’re a tough team and couple that with us having two kids out, we just wanted to survive.”
Abbey White and Abigail Hastings each scored 16 points to lead the Hilltoppers.
The Hilltoppers, who made 4 of 7 field goals in each of the first, second and third quarters, were 15 of 30 overall and outrebounded LT 28-21.
Hofland is pleased with his team’s showing in the league so far.
“We lost our first conference game against Downers which hurt us,” he said. “We still have a game left with Hinsdale and we still have a young team and right now we’d like to hold on to second in the conference.”
Glenbard West won despite turning the ball over 20 times. LT was only able to turn that into eight points at the other end, though. Glenbard West was able to take LT’s 12 turnovers and convert those into 12 points at the other end.
The Hilltoppers starters also outscored LT’s starters 44-32, but only got four points — all from Abby McBride — off the bench.
Game breakdown
SCORE BY QUARTER 1 2 3 4
Glenbard West 11 11 13 13
Lyons Township 8 12 10 17
GW Abigail Hastings 16, Abbey White 16, Kara Stack 7, Liz Rohr 4, Abby McBride 4, Molly McBride 1
LT Jill Keeve 11, Molly Barry 10, Lea Metz 7, Ashley Campos 6, Olya Cholewick 4, Renata Butikas 4, Brittany Yelnick 3, Sara Hoffman 2
