I took a ride out to Maine South yesterday evening to see the Lane Tech Champions take on the Maine East Blue Demons. I fully expected the Champions to handle Maine East. I was just stopping in to check out Lane before I went over to Notre Dame to see them play Sean Connor’s Antioch Sequoits which I thought might be a 12-5 upset.
It was my first time being in the Maine South gym. It’s a nice enough gym but the light was poor. The color of the light was okay, just not enough light.
I arrived and the game had started already. Maine East had a lead at the end of the first quarter on the strength of some three point shooting. The Champions quickly put an end to that in the second quarter and used their overwhelming size to basically score at will in the paint in the second quarter. The Champions had a ten point lead at the half and never looked back winning 69-42.
Lane advances to Friday’s Regional final against New Trier at 6:00 p.m. The Trevians are favored to advance out of their own 4A sectional so the Champions will have their hands full. New Trier has been down state several times in recent years. They have some deadly outside shooters including Christopher Kirkpatrick and Daniel Houlihan.
Lane’s length will help with defending these shooters but I saw New Trier play #1 Kenwood and Kenwood struggled to defend the whole court against multiple shooters.
This regional final might the best one in the area. It would be a nice win for Lane. This is why they struggled through a killer schedule this year—to get ready for this game against a good team.
