Opitz's big boot boosts Vikings

Fremd was good as gold as it boldly went for and converted an amazing seven fourth downs Saturday afternoon.

But there wasn't enough time left to try to make it 8-for-8 as the five-time defending Mid-Suburban West football champions trailed their wild division opener by a point against Schaumburg.

So fourth-and-inches at the Saxons' 16 became fourth-and-33 with 10 seconds to play and no timeouts as senior Brett Opitz came on for his first field goal attempt of the season.

A Schaumburg timeout didn't bother Opitz. He coldly split the uprights as Fremd (4-1, 1-0) survived for its 20th straight West win 37-35 at Conant's Feutz Field in Hoffman Estates.

"I had to stick to the fundamentals and put it through," said Opitz, who gave credit to long snapper Eric Conrath and holder Zenon Kolakowski. "You can't let that stuff (timeouts) affect you in football.

"It was such a relief and such a feeling of happiness. I can't believe it."

It capped an unbelievable day where Fremd scored the first 21 points en route to a 28-7 halftime lead.

Schaumburg (3-2, 0-1) answered and went up 35-34 with 36.5 seconds left as Anthony Iannotti and Josh Spandiary hooked up from 15 yards for their third touchdown pass and Adam Syvertsen hit the extra point.

Schaumburg kicked out of bounds at the Fremd 42 to stay away from dangerous return man Evan Wright. But the speedy junior, who rushed for 115 yards with 67- and 3-yard touchdown runs, took a quick out from Mike Tauchman (12-for-20, 140 yards) on the left sideline and raced 32 yards to the Saxons' 26.

"I think we knew before that we'd come down and score," said Fremd senior tackle and linebacker Jeff Bobek. "We knew they weren't going to be able to stop our offense."

After two missed passes, Tauchman scrambled for 9 yards. Now it was time for Opitz, who came in just 1-for-4 on extra points and had one blocked by Patrick Derbak on Fremd's final touchdown.

"My confidence was a little shot because I missed a lot of PATs which were super easy," Opitz said. "Coach (assistant Jason) Hogrefe spent any time he could during practice trying to help me out."

Fremd had 469 yards of total offense behind Jeff and Brian Bobek, Christian Lombard, Jimmy Norris, Mark Colgan, Jack Konopka and Mike Mottweiller. Mike Gyetvay (27 carries, 151 yards) had first-quarter touchdown runs of 2 and 36 yards and Tauchman threw a fourth-down touchdown pass of 15 yards to Kolakowski to make it 34-21 with 9:24 left.

But the Saxons' line of Mike Scolire, Bill Abruzzo, John Mejia, Mario Echavaria and Craig Cruz gave Iannotti (22-for-28, 299 yards) time to throw 4 touchdowns. Shepard Little rushed for 100 yards and a touchdown.

"We can score on anybody," said Saxons coach Mark Stilling. "But you've got to play 48 minutes."