The Lake Forest College women's basketball team prevailed 93-89 at Knox College Tuesday evening. Forester junior forward Liz Radtke produced a diverse statistical line with a career-high-tying 17 points, six rebounds, four assists, three steals, and a pair of blocked shots.
Radtke was 7-for-10 from the field, helping lead Lake Forest to a 52.9 percent shooting night, the team's best of the season.
Junior point guard Sam Schuring led all players in the game with 20 points, matched Radtke's six rebounds, and added three assists. Fellow junior guard Alex Messacar scored a season-high 14 points and also pulled down six boards.
Three freshmen guards came off the bench to make significant contributions to the Forester victory. Jenna Rice recorded game-highs with nine assists and six steals while Abby Wiedman scored a career-high 13 points and Kelly Mehalek chipped in with nine. Wiedman was 4-for-4 from the field and 5-for-7 from the foul line.
Lake Forest missed both of its three-point attempts and shot 70 percent (21-for-30) from the free throw line. Knox shot 31 percent from the floor, made 12 of 40 three-pointers, and connected on 72.1 percent (31-for-43) of their foul shots. The Foresters had a 38-34 edge in rebounds but committed 39 of the game's 71 turnovers.
The Foresters scored the game's first six points and led 29-27 before being outscored 21-8 over the last five minutes and 20 seconds of the opening period.
Knox took a 48-37 lead into the locker room at halftime and began the final 20 minutes with a 7-2 run to extend the margin to a game-high 16 points (55-39). The Foresters scored 10 straight points later in the period to trim the deficit to just four (57-53) but four Prairie Fire three-pointers in as many attempts over the next three minutes extended the lead back up to 14 points (71-57) with 10:12 to play. Trailing 79-70 with six minutes to play, the visitors scored eight of the game's next nine points to pull within two with three-and-a-half minutes left. Knox scored the next four points but Lake Forest continued to chip away. A basket by Mehalek brought the Foresters to within a point with less than a minute remaining and, following a Knox turnover, a shot by Schuring put Lake Forest ahead 86-85. The home team regained the lead on the next possession but Schuring gave the Foresters an 88-87 advantage with approximately 10 seconds left and a traditional three-point play by Wiedman with just a few ticks left on the clock sealed the victory. Each team made a pair of free throws int he final seconds to close out the scoring.
The Foresters evened their overall record on the year at 5-5 and raised their Midwest Conference mark to 4-2. Knox fell to 1-11 overall and 1-6 in the league.
Lake Forest will be back on the road this weekend, playing at Ripon College Friday evening at 5:00 and at Beloit College the following afternoon at 2:00.
