Hackbarth, St. Charles North shoot down Fremd

After watching a double-digit, third-quarter lead shrink to 3 in the opening minute of the fourth quarter, St. Charles North's Kiley Hackbarth felt it was time to step up her game.

And that's exactly what the 5-foot-4 senior point guard did, breaking down the defense for a layup, dishing off to teammate Jenna Bell for an easy basket and converting a pair of free throws while igniting an 11-0 run that helped push the North Stars (10-5) to a 55-43 victory over Fremd (10-5) during Tuesday's third day of the 27th annual Dundee-Crown Charger Classic in Carpentersville.

St. Charles North advances to face Naperville Central (13-1) in Wednesday's 5 p.m. fifth-place game.

"I knew I had to do something to help out our team," said Hackbarth, who scored 8 of her game-high 17 points in the fourth quarter. "They (the Vikings) kept chipping away but we did a great job of keeping that lead."

"She (Kiley) did some good things and once she did some good things they started collapsing on her a little bit," North Stars coach Colleen Brennan said of the Rhode Island recruit. "So she went ahead and found some other people to take advantage of that."

Fremd coach Dave Yates was equally impressed by Hackbarth's tenacity.

"She did a nice job on offense but I thought she really caused problems for us defensively," said Yates. "For being one of the smallest players on the floor, she made a huge impact on the game."

Faced with difficult defensive assignments against Fremd's Gianna Abruzzo (13 points, 10 rebounds) and Taylor Glassmann (9 points), Bell and Hackbarth limited the Vikings' top two shooters to just 1 second-half field goal after the duo combined for 16 first-half points.

"Jenna Bell did a great job on (No.) 32 (Abruzzo)," said Hackbarth, who also added 7 assists. "She only had two second-half points, and that killed them."

Fremd, which fell behind 15-6 early and trailed throughout the game, shot just 29 percent from the field (16-of-56) - and 23 percent (5-of-22) from beyond the 3-point arc.

"Our man defense has been looking good lately," said Brennan. "They were talking, helping each other out and blocking out pretty well. I love when the team plays together like that."

Bell scored 11 of her 16 points in the first half when the North Stars built a 31-24 advantage.

"We just beat a real good basketball team," Brennan said. "That's a great program."

Fremd will take on Bartlett (9-6) in Wednesday's seventh-place contest at 3:30 p.m.

"We're usually a good shooting team but unfortunately we kind of picked a bad moment to miss a number of shots in a row," Yates said of his team's four-minute dry spell without a field goal in the fourth quarter.

"I thought we were a deeper team, but you've got to give them credit. They played hard the entire game and battled us every possession."