Shumaker, Meadows meet Fremd's challenge

When Sara Shumaker played on the Rolling Meadows varsity girls basketball team as a freshman, the Mustangs won 6 games all season.

Now a senior, Shumaker helped her Mustangs get their sixth win in six games.

Shumaker's tough face-guarding defense in the middle and the Mustangs' composed offense and scrappy man-to man added up to a 40-33 victory Tuesday night against defending Mid-Suburban League champ Fremd.

The Mustangs handed the host Vikings their first loss in six games.

“Crazy improvement, it's amazing,” Shumaker said, referring to the last few years. “It was awesome. Just staying composed was our biggest challenge.”

The Mustangs truly were as senior guard Madelynn Conlin and freshman Jacqueline Kemph each hit pressure-filled ends of the bonus with 55 and 34 seconds left in the game for a 37-31 lead.

“We were so well-prepared from how much coach (Todd) Hatfield does,” Conlin said. “It's crazy. We knew we could win this one.”

Hatfield said his players and coaches may have been the only ones to know that.

“All I can say is don't tell anyone about us,” said Hatfield with a big smile. “We like being under the radar. We are the only ones who believed in us. No one else believed in us.”

A 3-pointer by Bridget Kubis and 2 free throws by Megan Gray gave the Vikes an 8-2 lead.

But the Mustangs jumped ahead 14-13 after one quarter when sophomore center Morgan Keller hit one of her three buckets.

Neither team led by more than 4 points until Kemph's free throws.

“We rely on our man-to-man defense because it's so tough,” Conlin said. “We try to get our defense to drive our offense. Everyone stepped up. This was awesome.

“It's a whole team effort. Our freshmen (Kemph, Alexis Glasgow who had 5 points and Jennifer Vliet who had 4) have jumped right in and you can't even tell they're freshmen. They don't show their age at all.”

Meadows showed it wasn't to be denied by holding the Vikings well under their 61 points per game.

“We definitely say ‘hats off to Todd,' ” said Fremd coach Dave Yates. “He did a great job with his kids. Every time we made a run at them, they had an answer.

“They controlled the game and the tempo. We always felt we had a chance, but to Meadows' credit, they consistently made the big plays and were very disciplined and composed down the stretch.”

Conlin and junior Ann Marie Lynch each scored 8 points for Meadows while Kemph had 7 and Keller 6.

“Obviously, it was our defensive performance that did it,” Hatfield aid. “Without a doubt, Sara's (Shumaker) face-guarding, nose-to-nose defense in the middle was huge. It was tiring for Sara, pure exhaustion. But she is an absolute horse in there, no pun intended.”

Senior Megan Gary battled inside for 13 of Fremd's points while guards Bridget Kubis connected for 9 and Ashley McConnell 7.

“In our pregame talk, there were mirrors in the room and coach talked about how Fremd was a mirror image of us,” Conlin said. “We were both were 5-0 and were coming in after going undefeated in our tournaments. And we have a lot of similar players that do the same things as we do.”

Now the Mustangs will prepare for its MSL East opener against Prospect on Friday and Fremd will get ready for its West opener at Barrington.

“We've got a big game in two days,” Yates said. “So we've got to get better.”

Meadows sure has in a period of four years.