Girls basketball notes: Fremd heads into postseason as team to beat in Barrington sectional

The race to the girls basketball finals in Normal on March 7 and 8 begins with play-in games on Saturday.

Cook area teams will be looking to reach the Illinois State campus from many directions. Hersey High School is hosting a Class 4A and 3A supersectional on Monday, March 3 at the Forest View Educational Center in Arlington Heights.

The 4A teams looking to reach the Elite Eight from Arlington Heights are participating in the Barrington and St. Charles East sectional. Regionals will be at Prospect, Stevenson, Hoffman Estates and Larkin.

In seeding order and records through Monday, the Barrington sectional features top-seeded Fremd (23-5) followed by Prospect (24-6), Hersey (18-11), Stevenson (18-11), Rolling Meadows (19-8), Barrington (14-15), Palatine (15-15), Conant (13-14), South Elgin (18-10), Hampshire (13-14) , Buffalo Grove (12-17) Larkin (12-16), Schaumburg (7-21), Dundee-Crown (3-24), Elgin (6-23), Hoffman Estates (3-24) and Wheeling (2-28).

State-ranked Fremd recently took a 56-50 decision over Lyons Township, which held the No. 1 ranking in the state two months ago.

"We feel very fortunate to be the No. 1 seed in our sectional again this year," said first-year Fremd coach James Han, whose talented team includes Utah-bound senior Ella Todd, who went over 1,000 points as a junior. "I think we have some of the same programs at the top of the seeding which will make it a difficult challenge again to get out of the sectional.

"We are disappointed Fremd was not selected to host any of the sites but feel fortunate to have all the regionals that are fairly close to us as well as a Barrington sectional site and a Hersey supersectional site."

No. 2 seed Prospect enters this week off a solid 53-37 win over visiting Stevenson.

Seven of the top eight seeds in the sectional are from the Mid-Suburban League.

"We are excited to be a part of the Barrington sectional," said Prospect coach Matt Weber. "We are also very excited to be hosting our own regional since the last three years we have lost a regional championship at a home game of the other team (Libertyville, Hersey and Schaumburg)."

Knights junior Alli Linke is currently at 1,248 career points (1,746 is the program record). Her 506 points this season are close to the program record of 579. She also has 814 career rebounds (the record is 897) and with more than 300 this season she broke the record held since 2002 of 284 set by Molly May.

Palatine also enters the tourney with a 1,000-point scorer.

Senior Molly Pieper reached the 1,000-point milestone when she scored 20 points with 5 rebounds and 2 steals against Hoffman Estates.

"The team was so excited to celebrate her accomplishment and her entire family and current and previous AAU coaches filled the stands to support her as well," said Palatine coach Sarah Davis.

Palatine started this week with a 15-15 record.

"The Barrington sectional is tough, really tough," Davis said. "We’re hopeful to compete against some of the top teams in the state. The level of competition within this sectional is tough."

Hersey coach Courtney Ludois has her team on the brink of 20 wins.

Her Huskies (19-11 starting this week) are the No. 3 seed.

"It will be interesting," Ludois said. "With a lot of familiar teams to each other, it's good and bad. Good because it's teams you've seen before but bad because we all know each other so well and it's hard to score against that. But it will be fun."

Joining the action at the St. Charles East sectional are the top-seeded Saints followed by (in seeding order) Batavia, St. Charles North, Glenbard West, Wheaton Warrenville South, Wheaton North, York, Lake Park, DeKalb, Geneva, Glenbard East, West Chicago, Addison Trail, Proviso West, Glenbard North, Willowbrook, Bartlett and Elk Grove (4-26), which won its last MSL East game 55-27 over Wheeling.

The Warren supersectional includes a handful of area teams from its Glenbrook North sectional.

In seeding order, Glenbrook North welcomes top-seeded Loyola (29-2), followed by Maine South (21-9), Glenbrook South (21-9), Glenbrook North (21-6), Lane Tech (17-11), New Trier (14-14), Highland Park (19-7), Evanston (9-19), Leyden (21-9), Taft (11-18), Niles West (8-18), Maine East (14-15), Maine West (8-18), Lincoln Park (12-16), Niles North (7-15), Senn (12-8) and Mather (14-9).

Regionals are at Niles West, Leyden, Lane Tech and Evanston.

Maine East comes in as the No. 12 seed with standout sophomore Arabella Silva having scored 1,194 points after breaking the single-game program record with 38 points against Elk Grove.

"The Glenbrook North sectional is always one of the toughest sectionals to win," said Blue Demons coach Lance Newman. "With returning champion Loyola and other top teams like Maine South and Glenbrook South, it makes winning a regional pretty difficult. Then you have Evanston, New Trier, Glenbrook North and Lane Tech who are always tough. There are a lot of good programs and ballplayers in this sectional and I can't wait to see who makes it out."

Maine South, the No. 2 seed behind defending Class 4A state champ Loyola, has enjoyed its fifth 20-win season under seventh-year coach Jeff Hamann.

"We know we have a tremendous challenge in front of us with the number of high quality teams in our sectional," Hamann said. "However, we are excited for another opportunity to make another deep run. We will continue to take it one practice and one game at a time."

The champion at GN will face the champion from the Huntley sectional.

The Huntley sub-sectional A features Grant, Warren, Lake Zurich, Libertyville, Carmel, Mundelein, Round Lake, Waukegan and Zion-Benton.

The sub-sectional B comprises Jacobs, Huntley, Harlem, McHenry, Rockford Auburn,Rockford East, Rockford Guilford, Rockford Jefferson and Hononegah.

Class 3A

The North Chicago and DePaul Academy sectionals feed into Hersey's 3A supersectional.

Competing at North Chicago are top-seeded Grayslake Central, Cary-Grove, Wauconda, St. Viator, Vernon Hills, Resurrection, Lake Forest, Antioch, Northside, Wheaton Academy, Lakes, Ridgewood, Amundsen, Deerfield, Grayslake North, Fenton, CICS/Northtown and North Chicago.

St. Viator is one of the four regional hosts along with Cary-Grove, Grayslake Central and Ridgewood.

A young St. Viator team, seeded No. 4, entered this final week of the regular season at 17-12.

"I know we are excited going into the playoffs this year," said second-year Lions coach Kyle Braheny. "We had the toughest schedule in our sectional so I feel like we are prepared for any team we are going up against in the playoffs.

"We are familiar with many of the teams in our sectional and there are going to be some competitive games. One of our goals this year was to be playing our best basketball at the end of the season and I feel like we are pretty close to reaching that goal. We play with a lot of effort and it is going to be an exciting next couple of weeks."

52nd annual MSL title game: Fremd (23-5, 10-0) is going for its third straight win in the Mid-Suburban League title game when it visits Prospect (24-6, 10-0) at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

First-year coach James Han will take the Vikings into the game with an unprecedented 21 championships from 25 appearances in the showcase event which began in 1974.

Fremd's last two wins came over Hersey, including a 58-49 triumph last season led by current senior Ella Todd's game-high 21 points.

Prospect is making its second appearance in four seasons. The Knights lost to Barrington in the 2022 game.

Prior to that, Prospect played in the game twice, and both were losses to Fremd in 1984 and 2004.

Seventh-year coach Matt Weber recently picked up his 100th win.