Glenbrook South currently has four of the top seven point-scorers in the SHL, and the Titans average a league-high 4.75 goals per game.

And while South’s Zack Freimuth currently leads the SHL in points, the Titans are far from a one-trick pony.

“I think teams expected us to be top-heavy this year, in terms of our top guys, but I we’re getting production from everybody,” South defenseman Marty McAuley said. “We’re getting good offensive zone pressure, quality defense, and good play from everybody.” 

The scoreboard operator got a workout at Wednesday’s game between host Glenbrook South and Lake Forest, as South’s high-scoring squad squared off with a feisty Scouts team that has been scoring with more regularity. 

The result was a wild 7-5 win for GBS that saw seven goals scored in the second period alone.

The win also gave GBS the series sweep over Lake Forest and came 24 hours after South won 6-3 over heated rival Glenbrook North. South managed to sidestep the danger of a potential emotional let down against Lake Forest.

“We played last night and the kids were gassed,” GBS coach Jim Philbin said. “We wanted to come out and have a good first period. I didn’t care what the score was going to be — just get a skate and compete. After that the adrenaline kicked in and we were playing well.”

Glenbrook South got two goals apiece from Freimuth and McAuley and one apiece from Blake Hoffer, Ryan Mulvey, and Wyatt Sherwood. Sherwood’s goal came in the game’s waning moments on an empty-netter, with Lake Forest trailing 6-5 and chasing an equalizing goal.

Freimuth, Hoffer, McAuley, and Sherwood are all among the league’s top seven players in points. Freimuth leads the SHL with 26 goals and 27 assists.

Lake Forest got two goals from Demitri Fallidas and one apiece from Jack Walsh, Logan Uihlein, and Andrew Marsch. The Scouts had to chase  South all night but they never stopped coming.

“Logan (Uihlein) had a goal, that was nice, and he had a couple big hits,” Lake Forest coach Steve Sarauer said. “Walsh had a nice first goal for us and when we finally started moving the puck, we scored. And we got a lot of goals tonight because we were just going hard to the net.”

Lake Forest went into Wednesday’s game after clinching a spot in the SHL playoffs with a 5-4 overtime win Friday at York. The Scouts are 3-1 and have netted 19 goals in their last four league games against Saint Viator, York, Fenwick, and GBS.

Sarauer had to be less concerned about scoring than about slowing down Glenbrook South. Freimuth is the head of the snake for GBS and Lake Forest tasked Murphy Moorhead with shadowing him.

Moorhead hounded Freimuth and played physical hockey against him for three periods, “and even though we were all over him, the kid still had three points,” Sarauer said of Freimuth. “But he’s driving everybody nuts. He’s a good guy to have on your team and a guy you don’t want to play against.”

Glenbrook South (28-12-0, 18-7-0 in SHL play) struck first on the power play, on a McAuley one-timer from long range and a feed from Freimuth with 9:27 left in the first period. Hoffer also assisted on the goal. South went up 2-0 roughly 30 seconds later when Alex Tsoutsias found Hoffer at a wide-open far post.

Lake Forest (20-19-1, 13-14-0) halved its deficit early in the second period when Walsh buried a shot from the left circle. But another South power play bore fruit with 11:22 remaining, when Sherwood angled a pass from the left circle to the far post and Freimuth was there to give South a 3-1 lead.

“Our penalty kill struggled,” Sarauer said. “We’re usually pretty good on the PK, but they’re a good power play team. So we knew it was going to be tough.”

To that point, South was happy with its play. The Titans finished with a 40-29 edge in shots over the Scouts.

“We had a stretch where we were getting pucks in, we were hounding them, and our offensive pressure was great,” McAuley said. “I thought we back-checked well tonight and we had a bunch of shots — it’s tough to save goals when you got forty shots taken on you.”

Mulvey made it 4-1 a minute later from the top of the right circle, with an assist to Dylan Monagan, who was also penalized on the play to give Lake Forest an ensuing one-man advantage.

The Scouts made it count. Fallidas scored the first of his two goals on a rebound after a Zach Shoemaker shot in front, making it 4-2 with 9:44 remaining in the second period.

Another South power play set up Freimuth’s league-leading 26th goal. Freimuth took a pass from Nick Ventura, swept ahead up the right side, cut left past around a defenseman and got to the doorstep. Lake Forest goalie Teddy Huddleston made the initial point-blank stop, but Freimuth got his stick on the rebound as he was falling to the ice to give South a 5-2 lead with 7:06 remaining.

Marsch buried a follow-up goal after a Noah Kowalski shot from the point that went wide, bouncing off the boards to the front of the goal, and McAuley finished the second period’s seven-goal marathon of scoring when he fired from the right side on a Freimuth feed.

South’s 6-3 lead lasted for the first three minutes of the third period. Uihlein buried a slap shot from the point on the left side on a feed from Walsh, and Lake Forest made it 6-5 when Jackson Drum found Fallidas open at the post on the right side, with 3:45 left to play.

Sherwood capped the game with South’s game-clinching goal in the game’s final minute. With Huddleston pulled, Freimuth cleared a puck and Sherwood split two Scouts and beat them to it, burying it into an empty net.

Sherwood also had two goals one day earlier against Glenbrook North.

“Wyatt has been absolutely on fire,” Philbin said. “This whole year he’s been one of our best players. And that goal is coming after playing an emotional game last night and popping in a couple goals, then coming in here and doing that at the end of a shift.”

Freimuth currently leads the SHL with 53 points, six points ahead of Loyola’s second-place Charlie Baine (19 goals, 28 assists). Hoffer (13 goals, 28 assists) is third with 41 points, and McAuley (9 goals, 28 assists) is fifth in the SHL with 37 points. Sherwood’s 19 goals and 15 assists is seventh-best in the league.

“Right after the North game in the locker room, our focus was on Lake Forest,” McAuley said. “We have a bunch of games coming up and our mentality has been to roll through all of those games, right into the playoffs.

“(Lake Forest) wanted this one but we wanted to sweep them. We had a couple defensive breakdowns, not picking up guys on the back end, and they had a couple rebounds, and a back-door tap for their fifth one. I thought we played well but we were a little sloppy. 

“We’re still figuring some of those things out but when we’re on, we’re on.”

Only once in 51 combined games had either team played in an SHL game that saw 12 goals put on the board. GBS and Lake Forest also engaged in an 11-goal game against each other back in early October.

Philbin and Sarauer agreed that the volume of goals given up Wednesday was less than ideal.

“We got a little sloppy in our zone,” Philbin said. “We had a couple lines with too many minuses and we can’t have that.”

“We’re playing hard,” Sarauer said. “But we’ve got to pick guys up in front of the net. Too much puck-watching, and that’s a problem.

“They’re one of the best teams. They’re just very good. Their defensemen are very solid. Once in a while they take too much of an offensive chance, and leave their goalie hanging a little bit, and we didn’t take advantage of those opportunities tonight.”

For Lake Forest, Drum’s 15th assist of the year has him currently tied for 8th in the SHL with 32 points. Fallidas’ two goals gave him 12 on the year, and both he and teammate Shoemaker (12 goals, 14 assists) are tied with four other SHL players for 12th place in points with 26.