Boys basketball: Lake Central wins ugly against rival Merrillville

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Updated: February 23, 2012 8:24AM

MERRILLVILLE — Style points aren’t nearly as important as staying on top of the conference, as Lake Central learned in its 55-44 victory over DAC rival Merrillville.

“You have to win ugly games sometimes, and I think tonight was one of those games,” Lake Central (12-2, 8-1 DAC) head coach Dave Milausnic said. “For whatever reason, we were not very sharp tonight, offensively and defensively.”

Merrillville (6-6, 5-4 DAC) trailed by six points at the start of the fourth quarter but cut the lead to two with 2:30 remaining. Soon after, though, Lake Central got into the bonus and put the game away by hitting eight of their 13 free throw attempts in the final period.

“If we don’t make those free throws, it could’ve been the downfall of the game for us,” said Tye Wilburn, who was 5-for-6 from the line in the fourth.

Lake Central took a 28-22 lead into halftime, thanks to 15 first-half points from Glenn Robinson III. He was matched point-for-point in the first two quarters by Merrillville’s Jelani Pruitt, who also had 15 points in the first half — including all of his team’s 11 points in the first quarter.

“Pruitt was unbelievable tonight, and we didn’t match his intensity,” Milausnic said. “He was a big reason why they made some of their runs tonight.”

Said Merrillville head coach TJ Lux: “We knew that they were going to come after our perimeter guys, so we needed someone on the inside to step up. Jelani needs to continue to grow in that role; he’s been doing a real good job of that ever since we put him into the starting lineup.”

In the third quarter, it was Wilburn who carried the Indians’ offense, hitting a trio of 3s to keep Lake Central ahead.

“Those looks came from our ball movement,” said Wilburn, who finished with 18 points. “They got tired once we started swinging the ball around, their defense started to break down and that’s when I got open.”

“I think they lost him a little bit,” said Milausnic. “A few times they were trying to double team our guys in the perimeter and he was able to get loose in the corner.”

Merrillville’s offense struggled from the floor in the final two quarters, hitting just nine of their 26 shots, keeping them from catching the Indians. Pruitt added eight points in the second half to finish with a game-high 23 points. Robinson led all Lake Central scorers with 21.