Freshman Gaby Dzik erupts for career-high 30 points in Crystal Lake South’s win over Prairie Ridge

CRYSTAL LAKE – Crystal Lake South‘s Gaby Dzik couldn’t get anything going offensively in the second quarter Friday against Prairie Ridge.

That didn’t scare the Gators freshman from attacking the basket – again and again – in the second half.

After missing all eight of her shots in the second quarter, Dzik made three 3-pointers and added a three-point play in the third quarter on her way to a monster game and a career night.

Dzik, a 5-foot-10 guard, went 11 of 26 from the field and poured in a career-high 30 points to help lift South past Prairie Ridge 58-35 in their Fox Valley Conference game.

Combined with the electric play of junior guard Laken LePage, who had a rare double-double with 10 points and 10 steals, the Gators moved to 6-2 overall and 4-0 in the FVC after finishing 3-25 last season.

“She’s our secret weapon,” said LePage, who missed all of her sophomore season with a torn ACL after averaging 11.1 points a game as a freshman. “It’s something that nobody really knew about and then when you play us it’s like, ‘Wow.’ That’s all I can say is, ‘Wow.’

“Offensively, she’s just insane.”

Dzik poured in 23 of her 30 points after halftime on 9-of-16 shooting, knocking down her first two attempts on long 3s.

“For a freshman, there is no intimidation there whatsoever,” South coach Mark Mucha said. “She’s not afraid to shoot the ball. When she has off nights, her philosophy is to shoot more to turn back on, and obviously you saw that today.

“A couple of misses doesn’t discourage her.”

Dzik said her teammates helped at halftime.

“During halftime, we all got together and they all hyped me up,” said Dzik, who made five 3s and added seven rebounds.

While Dzik was scoring in bunches for the Gators, LePage was commanding the floor with her crisp passing and in-your-face defense.

LePage was one of the area’s top playmakers as a freshman, earning All-FVC honors, but suffered a torn ACL in August that wiped out her entire sophomore season.

“It means everything, I love playing with these girls,” said LePage, who also had seven rebounds. “They’re like my family, and I’m so excited to be back with them. All of us have the want to win. We want to succeed and we know that we can, so putting that into play – and showing that – is really important for us.”

Mucha said some of the things LePage does for the Gators go unnoticed.

“Laken is so special to our team,” Mucha said. “She does so many things for us, and half the things I feel the common person doesn’t see. The scoring is what everyone sees, but there’s so many things she provides, from the steals to the assists to the leadership to the communication and always being that calm presence.

“Her strength, we really missed that last year, so we’re really fortunate that she came back.”

South also got strong contributions from Makena Cleary with nine points and two 3s and Tessa Melhuish with five points and a game-high 12 rebounds.

Prairie Ridge was led by sophomore guard Zoe Nanos and sophomore forward Winter Gallivan (eight rebounds) with 11 points apiece. Maia Cassin chipped in eight points, including two 3s, and Bella Militello had eight rebounds.

The Wolves (2-7, 1-3) had a slow start with only 10 first-half points, but came out after halftime and scored 11 in the first 2:31 of the second half. That offensive burst trimmed a 25-10 deficit at half to 31-21 before the Gators started to pull away once more.

Prairie Ridge is fairly young with five sophomores, five juniors and two seniors.

Coach Tim Taege said the Wolves are still searching for consistency on both ends of the floor and to put together more good stretches of play, like the 18-point second quarter against Crystal Lake Central on Tuesday that led to a 40-38 win.

“It starts on the defensive end. We need to get better on defense and our rebounding – those are two things that we talk about daily," he said. We are a young team, so I’m trying to get them to expand their good moments and lengthen those good stretches.

“We had a great start to the second half, we did a much better job defensively and then pushing in transition. Those are things we’ve done well historically but when you graduate six, you’re teaching a lot of those things again and trying to rebuild some of those things that have become kind of the program norm.”