Fremd 48, Carmel 37

Fremd had a few hurdles to clear in its opening game of the Class 4A Highland Park boys basketball regional on Monday.

Fremd was missing leading scorer Danny Bruno due to illness and the Vikings compounded matters by getting off to a slow start and then struggling at the free throw line.

But Fremd was solid on defense all night with the offense clicking into gear in the second quarter, leading the Vikings to a 48-37 victory over Carmel.

Fifteenth seed Fremd (12-14) advanced to play host and No. 3 seed Highland Park (20-5) in today's regional semifinal at 7:30 p.m.

"Without Bruno we were a little out of sync at the start," said Fremd coach Bob Widlowski, who hopes to have the senior back for today's game.

But senior Dan Itami (13 points) and senior Jim Mundt picked up the slack defensively with junior Alex Weis (11 points) and junior Will Reising (11 points) aiding the Vikings offensively.

"We just executed on offense and got ourselves into the lane," said Itami of the Vikings' offense which expanded a 3-point half-time advantage to 16 points with 5:22 remaining. "Since Bruno was out, we knew we had to step up."

Twentieth seed Carmel (4-24) narrowed the deficit to 44-37 with :57.4 remaining as junior Ryan Kloss scored 9 of his 13 points in the final quarter.

But the Vikings, despite converting only 12 of 26 free throws, were able to secure the victory.

Jordan Sivertsen added 12 points for the Corsairs.

"We had some nice looks in the second half, but they rimmed out," said Carmel coach John Baffico. "That kind of deflated our confidence. But the credit goes to Fremd defensively."