Fremd gets its revenge vs. Hersey
After winning 400 games as a head coach, Fremd's Dave Yates knows a thing or two about picking up the pace at halftime.
His Vikings did just that, outscoring Hersey 16-1 in the third quarter as Fremd doubled up the Huskies 62-31 Tuesday in Palatine.
"I don't know that we made it look easy," said Yates, who was honored before the game with a video tribute, a trophy and the game ball from last week's win over Lake Zurich which gave the longtime head coach his 400th win.
"We played well in the third quarter. That's when the separation happened."
Yates credited his team with keeping Hersey away from the basket and limiting the Huskies to just one shot.
"We started rebounding," Yates said. "Then those rebounds turned into fast breaks. Offense gets started by defense. Once we got those rebounds and began to push the ball, it made things easier."
Despite having the Daily Herald's top-rated girls team in Fremd (4-1) and third-ranked team in Hersey (3-2), the game was surprisingly sloppy in the first quarter. The teams combined for 15 turnovers as Fremd erased an early 8-6 deficit to take a 13-10 lead.
Fremd then began to stretch that lead behind Coco Urlacher and Ella Todd. The Vikings ran off six unanswered points to begin to the second quarter to lead 19-10.
Hersey battled back to close to 23-17 on a 3-pointer by Kristin Wentling (17 points) with just over two minutes left in the half. But Fremd shook that off to close out the quarter on a 6-2 run to lead 29-18 at the half.
Fremd opened with a three-point play by Isabelle Zavilla (8 points, 6 rebounds) and Hersey's Annika Manthy hit a free throw with 6:14 left in the third quarter to make it 32-19. Fremd would then close out the quarter on a 13-0 run to put the game away.
Urlacher said she and her teammates still had a bad taste leftover from the last season when Hersey eliminated Fremd in the sectionals of the state playoffs.
"We came in and we all knew we had to make up for last year," said Urlacher, who finished with 14 points and 7 rebounds.
"We just wanted to come out hard. When we went into the locker room at halftime we knew we just wanted to hit them hard when we came out."
Urlacher echoed her coach's comments about rebounding.
"We knew we had to rebound more," Urlacher said. "We knew we had to keep going because they were going to come back harder."
Todd, who finished with 12 points, said that her team's intensity was also a key.
"I thought we came out in the second half with a lot of energy," Todd said. "This was a big game for us. We had to rebound and we did that better in the second half."
Ellie Thompson added 11 points for Fremd while Gracie Todd chipped in 8 points off the bench at the end of the game.
Hersey coach Courtney Ludois said her team's turnovers and inability to score in the third quarter were the downfall.
"We can't make those kind of mistakes against a good team like Fremd," Ludois said. "We have to figure out how to take care of the ball and how to play together in those situations when things aren't going well."