Fremd impresses with big MSL West win
Borrowing a bit from the 2016 presidential campaigns, Fremd's girls basketball team made another impressive showing to the IHSA equivalent of caucuses - the coaches who vote on how teams will be seeded next month for the Stevenson Class 4A sectional.
After Friday night's performance at Schaumburg, it may very difficult not to award the 2015 state runner-up the top seed.
Using a defensive effort that kept the host Saxons without a 2-point bucket the entire first half and to 3-for-19 shooting during the first 16 minutes, Fremd racked up a 74-22 win in a game that pitted a pair of 4-0 teams in the Mid-Suburban West.
"We were as a group not very satisfied with our performance in the Morgan Park game (a 61-57 loss last Saturday), in addition to the start of the Barrington game Tuesday night (a 59-24 victory)," said Fremd coach Dave Yates. "We challenged our kids to get off to good start this evening and they were able to meet that challenge."
After Gina D'Orazio's 3-pointer cut the Vikings' lead to 10-6 at the 5:07 mark of the opening quarter, Texas Southern recruit Brianna Lewis took over.
The 5-foot-2 third-year varsity letter-winner rolled off 9 of her game-high 13 points in a span of about two minutes.
After the Saxons' Paige Alt hit her second 3-pointer to close the deficit to 19-9, Lewis found reserve guard Midori Williams (9 points) for a layup and a 3 in the final half-minute of the quarter to give the Vikes a 24-9 edge.
With the exception of a pair of Mallory Gerber free throws, the second quarter was all Fremd (17-2, 5-0).
The Vikings outscored Schaumburg 20-2 behind 6 points from Northwestern signee Bryana Hopkins and 5 apiece from juniors Grace Tworek (11 points) and Hayley Williams.
The Vikings won their 28th consecutive MSL West game, dating back to the 2012-13 season.
"We knew coming in this game matched undefeated teams in the division," Hopkins, who had 10 points. "Coach Yates talked to us about coming to play prepared, about being tough on defense."
Gerber and Alt led Schaumburg with 6 points apiece.
Schaumburg (11-7, 4-1) entered the game with a share of the divisional lead in January for the first time since 2008. But that Fremd defense limited the Saxons to 7 field goals.
Saxons coach Curtis Goodwin, whose squad comes back on Monday to face McHenry in a home MLK matinee, will look to use Friday's game as a learning experience.
"We'll reflect on this," Goodwin said. "They're extremely good. They came prepared. We need to go back and look at tonight's game and use it for the future."
Fremd will take on Batavia (16-4) in Monday's MLK session of the Subway Classic at Willowbrook High in Villa Park.
"Hannah Frazier (of Batavia) is an outstanding player," Yates said. "We look forward to the game. We really have an unselfish group with big-game experience that we hopefully can take advantage of."