Trio of siblings helping lead Lockport girls' basketball team to surprising success
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Things are going pretty well for the Lockport Township High School girls' basketball team.
The Porters have a great player who doesn't have a ton of experience, and she's part of three sets of siblings on the squad, and most importantly they've taken a big leap in the third year under their head coach.
After going two straight years without a conference win, the Porters won 9 of their first 10 games in Southwest Suburban play, and have already hit the 20-win mark overall in their 3rd season under head coach Darien Jacobs.
"After a couple of years of not having a winning season, just kind of changing … trying to work on changing the culture I think has been the biggest thing," he said. "I read a lot of books this summer, a lot of books on leadership; John Maxwell books, a lot of John Wooden books, a lot of even TikTok videos."
Senior forward Lucy Hynes has emerged as one of the Porters' leaders, despite being relatively new to the sport. She grew up in Ireland. Her family moved to the area before her freshman year, and she really hadn't played much basketball at all prior to her first season at Lockport.
"I played for about two years before I came here, but once a week, like, just for fun with my friends," she said. "Then my aunts played in Ireland as well, so I kind of learned from them, and when I came here it was obviously a bigger sport, so I decided to start it."
Jacobs said Lucy improved a lot her freshman year on the team.
"When I got here in the summer, I couldn't even tell that she had never really played much before that," he said.
Lucy and her younger sister, Sophie, are one of three sets of siblings on the Porters, along with Goda and Laura Arstikaitis and Katie and Alaina Peetz.
"It's pretty awesome. For our media day pictures, we did like all three of us, and it was great playing with all of us on the same team," Alaina said.
Despite all the success, and all the seeming fun this group has been having, Jacobs is trying to keep the expectations in check and just focusing on winning each game that's ahead of them.
"My big thing is, after a team plays us, as long as they say, 'Wow that was a tough game,' then we've done our job," Jacobs said.
At least 20 of their opponents this year have surely felt that way.
Alaina, a senior forward, is one of the three older siblings on the squad. She's also one of their leaders, and is having a great season after missing her entire junior year due to two hip surgeries, another example of the Porters' perseverance.
