Lakeview Topples South Lake in Tourney Tipoff

A pair of local girls hoops squads kicked off their Christmas break and the Lake Shore Christmas basketball tournament, with an intra-city showdown in the friendly confines of Lake Shore's new gymnasium.

Holiday tournaments, as a rule, are more educational experiences than important wins and losses.

A 41-22 victory for over rival was a perfect example of this for both teams.

"You do come in here hoping to get some valuable experience," . "You want your team to play well, but it's not as important to win as it would be in other cases."

The Huskies' coach was pleased with what he saw from his team, regardless of what the score wound up being.

"I saw us do some good things and some things that weren't so good," Haratsaris said. "I think South Lake did a pretty good job on us shutting down our inside game, and that's a good experience for us. We had to make adjustments on the fly. We really haven't had to do much of that to this point."

took away plenty from the contest also, according to coach Joe Charrette.

"I think we played really well," Charrette said. "We're small and we came in here hoping to dictate the pace of the game. I think we did that for the most part. We've struggled to score all year long and we struggled again tonight. We live and die by the jump shot and we just weren't making those tonight. Overall though, I thought we executed our gameplan well. They're just a very good team."

Lakeview's size, in particular, was troublesome to the Cavs, and it helped propel the squad to a 14-3 halftime lead.

"Joe (Charrette) does such a good job coaching South Lake. We knew they would come in here and play really hard, and try to take us out of what we want to do, which is go inside," Haratsaris said. "That made some girls who weren't necessarily used to scoring for us has to step up and become players tonight. I thought we did a decent job of that in the first half."

The Cavs came out after the break and got some of those elusive jump shots to fall, closing the gap at one point during the third period to nine points, 21-12. But Lakeview converted on some inside buckets and pushed the lead back to double digits by the end of the quarter, 29-16.

"There size was just too much for us," Charrette said. "But we played well. I'm proud of our performance here tonight. I really am."

Haratsaris reflected on similar sentiments with his squad.

"We're trying to get ready for league play which starts after the break," the Huskies' coach said. "Our schedule has been pretty erratic to now, and here we played tonight, then we turn around and play again on Wednesday. That's what it's going to be like when we get into league play. This is going to help us adjust to that, which is a good thing."

Senior Kailey Major paced Lakeview with 10 points, while South Lake's top scorer, senior Kaitlyn Hart, had 15 points for the Cavs.

Lakeview battles the host school, , Wednesday night at 5:30 p.m. at.