LZ's Bauer to join Shaw at Green Bay
On an official visit to the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay last weekend, Lydia Bauer saw a familiar face, a potential future teammate.
So she talked with Lory Shaw.
It might have been the first time the two fierce competitors smiled when looking each other in the eye.
"We were joking around about how Lake Zurich could never beat Warren," Bauer said with a chuckle.
This high school girls basketball season, for the first time in a while, the team to beat won't be Warren, but Lake Zurich.
While Warren graduated two Division-I players in Shaw (UW-Green Bay) and All-American Sarah Boothe (Stanford), it's Lake Zurich that now will boast two D-I players.
Bauer has decided to join old nemesis Shaw at UW-Green Bay, giving a verbal commitment to Phoenix head coach Matt Bollant with the intention of signing a national letter of intent in November. Bauer's classmate and hoops teammate Olivia Allen recently committed to Bradley.
"I'm definitely looking forward to it," Bauer said of the 2008-09 season. "I'm trying to focus on (high school) volleyball, but at the same time open gyms are going to be starting for basketball. I can't believe we're going to have two D-I athletes on the team. That's something I've never (experienced) before. It's going to be fun."
Bauer, a 6-foot-senior, has been an all-conference and all-area player for the Bears since her freshman year.
She's played both guard and forward. For UW-Green Bay, which last season went 26-6, including 17-1 in the Horizon League, she figures to play shooting guard or either forward position, Lake Zurich coach Chris Bennett said.
"They run a four out, one in, so she can play a 2, 3 or 4 in their offense," Bennett said. "She can post up, they can run her to the high post and they can have her shoot 3s on the weak side. Three things she's good at."
Bauer said she also had scholarship offers from Eastern Illinois, Arkansas State and Illinois-Chicago. She took an unofficial visit to UW-Green Bay before school started.
"It just felt like a good fit," she said. "Location-wise and distance-wise from home, it's far but not too far. When you're up there, it seems pretty far from home, but three hours is not too bad of a drive."
Bauer's junior basketball season ended prematurely, as she had shoulder surgery at the end of January to repair a stretched ligament. She got back on the basketball court in April for her AAU team, the Hustle.
"It's definitely well," she said of her shoulder. "I haven't had any problems with it since I got back into things."
Bauer, in fact, is playing for Lake Zurich's volleyball team and playing well. A setter, she's helped the Bears get off to a 7-2 start.
"She looks good on the volleyball court," Bennett said. "They're playing really well and she's one of their leaders."
Bauer has been one of Bennett's leaders the last three seasons. She has 919 career points, averaging 12.2 per game last season in addition to posting 5.2 rebounds per game.
Bauer is the oldest of three children of Andrew and Rachel, who was formerly the head girls basketball coach at Wheeling and an assistant at UW-La Crosse.
"Coach's kid, mature for her age," Bennett said. "She's played basketball really well since she was in fifth grade, she understands the game and is very fundamental. Those are all things coaches love."