Kit Girls Adjust In Time To Wipe Out LFA

Actual learning beats E-learning any day.

Just ask the members of the Evanston girls basketball team, who endured a wakeup call in the first quarter of Saturday’s non-conference contest with Lake Forest Academy and went on to down the Caxys 58-41 at Beardsley Gym.

The Wildkits used an 18-0 run in the second quarter to improve to 11-7 overall behind a game-high 24 points from sophomore Charity Bryant. Bryant accounted for eight of the points in that run, helping the hosts outscore the losers 23-5 in that period.

Payton King added 14 points for the winners, who host Glenbrook North Monday at 6:30 p.m. in a makeup CSL South division game after frigid weather conditions postponed that matchup on Friday.

Students at ETHS were allowed to pursue E-learning (over the computer) instead of actually attending classes Friday with wind chills below zero outdoors. But class was back in session Saturday for the basketball players, who had almost no scouting report on the Caxys.

The ETHS coaching staff wasn’t able to acquire any game tape of LFA until late Friday and the players had to adjust on-the-fly during the game Saturday.

“They play a weird (independent) schedule and we weren’t able to get anyone to exchange tapes with us, except the one we got late from Mother McAuley,” said ETHS head coach Brittanny Johnson. “That kept us on our toes today. We were kinda flat at first. We (coaching staff) didn’t have the answers for them, so they had to figure out who the (good) shooters were and how they wanted to play.

“We had to recognize if they were running any stuff we hadn’t seen before, and for not knowing anything about them beforehand, we handled it really well.”

LFA (7-14) broke out to a 15-11 first quarter lead before Evanston upped the energy on defense and forced 21 turnovers overall. The Caxys couldn’t keep up after that despite 11 points from Blanka Devai and 10 from Akshara Ginjupalli.

“We didn’t get to practice either,” Johnson pointed out, “and it took us awhile to get warm, to get loose, to get locked in. We just needed to wake up after there was no school Friday.

“One of our issues all year has been whether we’re able to execute our (halfcourt) offense. So this feels good, not great. We focused on ourselves all week after that Loyola game. I think it’s important to self-scout because it’s a way to get better. We’re on the cusp of our far-reaching goals (winning the conference title after losing 20 games a year ago), and if we stay solid against GBN and GBS next week, we can control our own destiny. We’re very excited about that.”

The Kits got excited in the second quarter. Bryant, who had missed three of her four field goal attempts in the first quarter, started the decisive run with a pair of free throws, a fast-break layup, and a score off a steal as the pace picked up on the court.

Evanston led 32-20 at the halftime break and LFA never got closer than 10 points after that. The hosts pushed the advantage after three quarters to 50-28, and that allowed Johnson the opportunity to rest some of her starters with a three-game slate looming next week.

Lake Forest converted just 35 percent (14-of-40) of its field goal attempts after a first quarter 5-for-8 showing.