The Luther North girls basketball team’s relentless rebounding resulted in a dominant, 70-34 win over North Shore Country Day on Thursday, Feb. 11.
More Top Picks Best Monitors For Reading Documents
The Wildcats finished with 34 offensive rebounds in the Class 1A North Shore Country Day Regional final in Winnetka. The Raiders grabbed 21 total rebounds.
The second-seeded Wildcats used their tremendous advantage on the boards to expand their lead to 18 points by halftime. Luther North grabbed 21 offensive rebounds in the first half.
There were instances where the Wildcats — notably, 5-foot-8 senior Amber Jackson (10 points, 12 rebounds), 6-foot-1 senior center Kaylin Wade-Roberts (14 points, 11 rebounds) and 5-foot-7 sophomore guard/forward Nicole Hansen (16 points, 11 rebounds) — kept the ball alive with two, three and even four offensive rebounds before scoring.
Rebounding against such strong, tall and physical players proved to be very difficult for third-seeded North Shore.
“What can we do?” North Shore coach Bruce Blair asked. “We have never been tall [as a program], but we’ve never been this short. … They got a lot of baskets early because they were tall. Good for them. We tried.”
Junior guard Emily Lubin was one of North Shore’s undersized players tasked with battling against Luther North down low. Lubin said the approach against the Wildcats’ frontline revolved around effort.
“You’ve just got to out-hustle them,” said Lubin, who finished with eight points. “Sometimes it doesn’t work, but you’ve just got to [give] your all and give it your best shot.”
Luther North’s sizable victory ended the Raiders’ season, but after the game Lubin and Blair were satisfied and optimistic about this year’s team.
Blair raved about his team’s performance in its 49-40 victory over St. Benedict on Tuesday, Feb. 9. The effort and teamwork were both outstanding, he said. Offensively, North Shore used excellent ball movement and its shot making to beat the Bengals in the teams’ regional semifinal, Lubin added.
That win was the Raiders’ 12th of the season. They finished 12-9 after losing six of their top seven players from the 2014-15 season.
Junior point guard Lauren Kaplinsky, the squad’s lone returning starter, was out of town for North Shore’s loss to Luther North.
“If you were to ask me if we would have won 12 games, with only one of our top seven back, that wouldn’t be what we would have [thought]. Vegas didn’t have us winning 12 games this year,” Blair said jokingly. “I’m really pleased.”
Both Blair and Lubin added that North Shore has a lot of potential, moving forward.
This year’s roster only included two seniors — co-captains Catherine Hayward (five points) and Katie Winslow (11 points, seven rebounds) — while Lubin, Kaplinsky and sophomores Haniya Ghazi and Julia Doyle (seven points, five rebounds) are all slated to return.
“I think that next year we could just build on what we did this year,” Lubin said.
Eric Van Dril is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter: @VanDrilSports