Girls Basketball: Team-first attitude drives Vernon Hills to undefeated league mark

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Vernon Hills' Lauren Webb (left) defends Lakes' Terese McMahon during Saturday's game. The Cougars won the game to finish 12-0 in the NSC Prairie. | Joe Shuman~For Sun-Times Media

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Updated: April 10, 2012 11:54AM

Rocco Pesola’s smile was impossible to miss Saturday afternoon in Lake Villa.

As he sat in a bleacher seat, Vernon Hills High School’s visiting girls basketball team battled Lakes in an NSC Prairie Division regular-season finale.

He remembered when Vernon Hills’ current prep players were considerably shorter, when a basketball ball in their tiny hands must have looked like an orange version of that enormous ball that slowly descends in New York every New Year’s Eve.

Pesola is president of the Vernon Hills Lady Cougars Feeder Basketball (VHLCFB). He was, for 10 years, the organization’s program director.

Pesola also served as a coach of VHLCFB teams.

“Our main philosophy, as a feeder program, is to make the girls’ transition to high school basketball an easy one,” said Pesola, still beaming hard. “We focus on skill development, player development, team concepts. But you know what the best part is? The support we get from Paul.”

Paul is Paul Brettner, Vernon Hills’ varsity girls coach. His wife, Stacie, coached with her husband at VHHS from 2004-06.

Her next hoops gig, starting in 2013: VHLCFB program director.

Stacie Brettner, thrilled and proud, also sat in a bleacher seat Saturday afternoon.

“Paul,” she said, “is all about the team and team effort. The players in his program don’t care about individual accomplishments … the kind of thinking we stress at the feeder level.

“I’m watching these (high school) girls now, and they’re not just tremendous team players for Vernon Hills; they’re also tremendously talented. Paul has four, five incredibly talented players. Most teams have one or two.”

Vernon Hills’ team Saturday afternoon had a three-point maven.

Sydney Smith is her name.

SS, a 5-foot-10 sophomore and VHLCFB product, was hot, hot, nailing a school-record eight treys against Lakes. She finished with 26 points —– 17 in the Cougars’ 21-point second quarter — in VH’s 61-46 victory.

The previous record of seven had been held by Alana Coy, in the 2009-10 season.

Paul Brettner guided that team, too.

Paul Brettner has guided every varsity girls basketball team in VHHS history.

“We have some pretty talented players,” the 12th-year coach said before Saturday’s game. “They’ve played a lot of basketball together. A lot. And they all get along. It’s been great, this season. A lot of fun.

“All I try to do, as a coach, is get out of the way,” added Brettner, who is assisted by ex-Cougars player Rachael Blanton.

What Smith did after her lights-out-forever performance against Lakes’ Eagles: sidestep the spotlight.

“My teammates set great screens for me,” she said. “I wouldn’t have made those shots without help from my teammates.”

Ah, the VHLCFB way.

VHHS raced to it first outright NSC Prairie title with a 12-0 mark. Saturday’s win was the Cougars’ 21st of the winter, another school record.

VH (21-4) was scheduled to face visiting Libertyville (20-6) for the NSC Championship on Feb. 8. Libertyville edged VH 41-38 in a Mundelein Tournament game in December.

It took Cougars senior Abby Springer, a relentless point guard, about a second, maybe two, on Saturday to come up with the team’s top 2011-12 moment so far.

“Today … What we did today, going undefeated (in the Prairie),” she said, after grabbing seven rebounds. “This was something we’d been shooting for, working toward, all season.”

VH junior post player Meri Bennett-Swanson (seven rebounds, three blocks) and sophomore Lauren Webb each scored 10 points Saturday; junior forward Alina Lehocky finished with six points and eight boards.

Future afterward: None other than a VHLCFB team took on a Lake Villa feeder team, on the varsity court, after Saturday’s varsity girls game.

Valuable trio: Seniors Brian Sher, Niko Escanilla and Tyler Alper aren’t your typical water-and-towel team managers for Brettner’s program at VHHS.

They scrimmage and drill with the Cougars.

“They’re awesome,” said Springer.

Give her a hand: You have to love Bennett-Swanson’s ability to focus in games, Smith hinted after Saturday’s win.

“She has a different, and secret, handshake … for everybody on the team,” Smith said.

Love in the air: A basketball, too. VH, a 3A sectional No. 2 seed, opens postseason action on its home court Feb. 14, against either Amundsen or Sullivan.