Tommie Aberle knows Lake Forest’s defensive success is not the result of one player.
“We work hard on our switching defense,” he said. “We can do that because we play so well together as a team. You have to be able to work well together in order to do what we’ve done so far this season.”
But Grayslake Central is the latest opponent to feel the frustration of playing against the sophomore guard.
Aberle led all scorers with 16 points, had seven rebounds and was a shutdown defender in top-seeded Lake Forest’s 48-27 win against the sixth-seeded Rams in a Class 3A North Chicago Sectional semifinal.
“Tommie is such a good three-sport athlete that it isn’t a surprise he can help us out on defense,” Lake Forest coach Phil LaScala said. “He made a lot of great passes, too, to go along with his defense and scoring.”
The Scouts (27-6), who have won 13 straight, will play in the sectional championship game at 7 p.m. Friday against the winner of the semifinal between Carmel (23-10) and St. Patrick (21-10).
Lake Forest held the Rams (22-12) to single-digit scoring in each quarter and has allowed an average of 21.7 points in its three postseason games.
“Defense is what we hang our hat on,” LaScala said.
The Scouts also have many ways to frustrate opponents with their strong cuts to the basket for layups.
“We love running back cuts to the basket, but teams are starting to try to take that away from us, so we have to find other ways to attack,” Aberle said.
Senior guard/forward Alex Forowycz scored 11 points for Lake Forest, junior guard Asa Thomas had 10 points and senior guard Sam Gibson added nine points.
“We did not hit as many 3-pointers as we usually do, but we showed we can score in a lot of different ways,” Aberle said.
Junior guard Dennis Estepp scored eights points for Grayslake Central, which was within striking distance at halftime, down 23-15.
That all changed when Lake Forest scored the first eight points of the second half. The Scouts extended their lead to 38-20 by the end of the third quarter.
Lake Forest was called for just four fouls during the entire game while playing its brand of hard-nosed defense.
“We know the competition keeps getting better at this time of the tournament, so we want to be ready for that challenge,” Aberle said. “When we commit to playing good defense, we think we can be hard to beat.”
Darren Day is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.