Fremd starts fast in third-place win over Hampshire
After losing in the semifinals, Fremd and Hampshire both wanted to end the 45th annual Wildcat Hardwood Classic boys basketball tournament on a high note Saturday night in the third-place game at Wheeling.
As was the case Friday night, Hampshire dug itself a considerable 28-11 deficit against the Vikings late in the first half before going into halftime trailing 30-16.
The Whip-Purs (9-7) once again displayed their never-say-die attitude as they outscored Fremd 20-11 in the third quarter before cutting the lead to 45-41 with 2:42 to play.
But the Vikings (10-5) just refused to be denied the third-place plaque as they put together a late 7-0 run en route to a 56-45 victory.
"I'm particularly pleased with how we bounced back from last night's game and we anticipated that we would," said Fremd coach Bob Widlowski, whose team outrebounded out-sized Hampshire 23-9. "We had a great finish from Ryan Brown. He stepped up for us hitting that 3-pointer and then he broke the press and finished at the other end."
The great sequence for Brown that coach Widlowski mentioned started when Brown nailed a wide-open 3-pointer before scoring again off of a turnover for a 50-41 lead with 1:41 to play. Then Fremd sophomore Jordan Williams (15 points, 4 rebounds) added an inside hoop for a 52-41 lead with 1:18 remaining and Hampshire was unable to mount a serious threat after that point.
"We needed a wakeup call and finally at halftime they got a little bit of a wakeup call," said Hampshire coach Mike Featherly, whose team shot 47.4 percent from the floor to 50 percent for Fremd. "We can't start off that slow against good teams. It's frustrating because we can compete with teams when we play our best basketball, but if we don't play hard we don't have a shot."
Williams' 15 points was a game-high while Hampshire's Adrien Ugochukwu had a team-high 14 points for the Whip-Purs. Hampshire's Nick Louis had 12 points while Fremd's Ryan Cox had 11 points and 4 rebounds.
Brown wound up with 10 points, and teammates Daniel Ko (6 rebounds) and Samuel Hirsch (5 rebounds) scored 9 points each. Hampshire’s Chayse Gray and Ryan Regalado scored 5 points.
"Today was a good bounce back game. We knew to stay confident and move onto the next game after yesterday," said Cox, whose team led 41-36 after three quarters. "We just tried to get the win, and come out and finish the tournament strong by going 3-1."