The return of senior guard Sydney Stanley from an injury is starting to make a difference for the Lake girls basketball team.

Exactly two weeks after the Flyers downed one of the league favorites, Fostoria, 47-38, to upset the Northern Buckeye Conference apple cart, Stanley led visiting Lake to a 36-30 overtime win over Bowling Green in non-league action Thursday. Lake improves to 3-7 while BG falls to 2-8.

Stanley does a lot of the same things Bowling Green State University senior guard Lexi Fleming does — she scores, rebounds, gets steals, assists—you name it, Stanley gets it done.

Plus Fleming and Stanley are the same height at 5-foot-5. Despite being the smallest player on the floor, in the win over BG, Stanley scored a team-high 15 points and then finished off her double-double with 12 rebounds and seven steals.

Stanley, who had not heard of Fleming until the comparison was made after the game, said she’s just glad to be playing basketball again.

“Coming back from an injury, it’s really different, so I’m glad to be back and back with my team,” Stanley said. “It’s just like (good) working on things we didn’t get to work on before.”

She mostly plays point guard, but coach Joe Nowak also puts her in the post where she can direct the offense, or even score among the opposing bigs.

“She’s a gritty girl,” Nowak said. “She might be a small girl in frame, but she plays much bigger than that. She’s gritty and she had a gutsy defensive performance for us.

“She had some nice offensive rebounds, a couple nice defensive rebounds, and steals down the stretch to really kind of propel us further.”

Stanley hit two first half three-point shots and scored 11 of Lake’s first 18 points, and then had the assist on a basket in the paint by freshman forward Savannah Little to give the Flyers a 20-11 lead with one minute remaining in the first half.

BG had answers for Stanley, however. First, BG senior forward Lola Thompson hit one of her five triples with 15 seconds left in the half to close the gap to six, 20-14, at the break.

Second, the Bobcats came out in the second half with a box and one defense, focusing on stopping Stanley.

As a result, BG opened the second half on a 7-0 run to take a 21-20 lead on a basket by sophomore post Megan Brinkman, which was assisted by Thompson, midway through the third quarter.

Eventually, the Flyers figured out what was going on and Stanley got back into her groove, but only by changing her style.

“Primarily, we try to get her to attack the basket or hit some open shots,” Nowak said. “She did that early, but changing up defenses and for them going into a box and one kind of threw us off a little bit.

“We got a little passive, but I thought the girls adjusted nicely the second half and we were fortunate to get a gutsy win on the road.”

To get that win, it took bonus basketball, but that was after the Flyers had a 30-24 fourth quarter lead.

BG senior guard Macyn Dean-Scheele connected on back-to-back jumpers, from 17 and 15 feet, and then Thompson got a steal and layup, but was fouled trying to get to the rim.

Thompson hit both with 40.8 seconds showing to tie the game at 30-30, and despite tries by both teams to score the game-winner, an extra four minutes was needed.

Lake shut out BG, 6-0, in OT, mostly because the Flyers had possession nearly the entire overtime. Lake outrebounded BG, 10-1 during OT, including seven offensive rebounds by the Flyers, and five during one possession.

“They possessed the ball the entire overtime,” BG coach Jake Vanneman said. “We got careless late with the basketball and you’re not going to win a game by giving up five offensive rebounds in a single possession.”

Lake even rebounded three of their own missed free throws in OT. Stanley hit two free throws, Lake sophomore forward Kaydence Eckenrode scored on an offensive rebound and putback, and Stanley had a steal and a layup with 15 seconds remaining for the Flyers’ points.

Stanley had two steals and two offensive rebounds during the OT, Eckenrode had three rebounds, freshman guard Brooke Wiley had two offensive rebounds off missed free throws and Little grabbed two rebounds.

Of course, Nowak would like it even better if BG never had the ball, especially in OT. Overall, Lake held a 45-32 advantage off the glass.

“I would not like for (BG) to not have that opportunity to rebound the basketball to make some shots,” Nowak said.

“But to our girls credit, we wanted to make this Christmas break stretch about us to try to figure some things out, to try to find us something to prepare for the second half of our league schedule.

“I think rebounding was definitely one of those areas that we wanted to focus on, on both ends of the floor, and I think our girls really stepped forward in that aspect tonight.”

The Flyers also did a good job milking time on offensive possessions during OT. The game saw 40 turnovers, including 20 by each team, so miscues had been common.

“We just had to stay calm and be aggressive and protect the ball no matter what, and not get our head into that kind of thing,” Stanley said.

Lake junior forward Lauren Tobias had nine points and five rebounds, Wiley had six points and six rebounds, Little had four points and 11 rebounds, and Eckenrode had two points, six rebounds, and two steals.

Neither team shot well. Lake was 13-for-49 (27%) from the floor and BG was 11-for-42 (26%), and the Flyers were 5-for-15 (33%) from the free throw line, the Bobcats were 3-for-5 (60%).

The bright spot for BG was the play of Thompson, who scored a game-high 19 points, grabbed five rebounds and had two steals despite Lake’s double-team.

“Lola’s got a motor that doesn’t quit and she just works her tail off,” Vanneman said. “We did a nice job tonight of moving the basketball to get her open looks, especially out of that double team.”

Also for BG, Dean-Scheele had four points, seven rebounds and three steals, senior post Allison Fry had two points and seven rebounds, Brinkman and senior Ashley Knowlton scored two apiece, and junior post Anne Konecny added one point.