Fremd survives Smith, South Elgin
South Elgin stormed back from a 10-point deficit to close to within 32-28 of Fremd with 1:20 left in the second quarter on Saturday.
But the Vikings created all the thunder for the next 11 minutes, outscoring their opponent 21-1 en route to a 67-37 triumph at the Dundee-Crown girls basketball tourney in Carpentersville.
The Vikings (3-0, 2-0 in the tourney) limited South Elgin (1-2 in the tourney) to 9 points in the final two quarters.
“We've got great team chemistry,” said senior guard Bridget Kubis, a sparkplug on the Vikings' aggressive man-to-man defense. “When everyone is on the same page, and we get rolling, we feel we are unstoppable.”
That sure seemed to be the case when the Vikes went on their big 21-1 run, getting a driving layup and 3-pointer from senior guard Sarah Power, and layups from Ashley McConnell, Megan Gray, Jamie Groot and Kubis in addition to 8 free throws.
“We were in a lot of foul trouble in the first half, and we went deep on our bench,” said Fremd coach Dave Yates. “Megan Gray (6-foot-1 senior forward) sat out almost the whole half and we had two or three other starters in foul trouble. We were just trying to weather the storm.”
Junior standout Becca Smith led the Storm with 16 points, giving her 1,021 for her career.
In South Elgin's 55-47 win over McHenry earlier in the day, Smith struck for 23 points to become the first 1,000-point scorer in the short history of South Elgin girls basketball.
“She's a great player,” said Kubis, who defended the Division I recruit Saturday. “I was trying to contain her the best I could. Everyone was giving me help-side defense.”
Smith's short jumper with 6:08 left in the fourth quarter gave the Storm its first bucket since freshman Savanah Uveges scored a fastbreak layup with 1:51 left in the second quarter, ending the Vikings' 21-1 blitz.
“It's pretty exciting,” said Smith, whose career-high of 33 points came as a sophomore against Jacobs. “First of all, it's all my teammates who have helped me by running screens, running plays and giving me the ball when I am open.
“Without them, there is no way I'd have been able to score 1,000 points.”
South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast was proud of his junior guard. “And she still has a ways to go,” he said. “She may get to 2,000.”
Fremd, the defending Mid-Suburban West champs, made quite an impression on Prendergast.
“That's a very impressive team,” said Pendergast, who also told that to the Vikings' player after game. “They graduated a lot of players from last year but here they are right back doing great. Dave (Yates) does a real nice job. Their up-tempo game, aggressiveness and physical play were very efficient.
“We were really excited about going into the second half. But we just dropped our pace and were not able to run with them. They played 32 minutes. We played 12.”
Uveges added 9 points for the Storm while junior Lania Robinson chipped in 6.
Fremd's tops scorers were McConnell (15 points), junior Jessie Wiedemann (13), Power (9) and Kubis (9).
”We just settled down and played out game (in the third quarter),” McConnell said. “Our help side defense was better.”
The Vikings finished with 7 3-pointers _ three by Power, two by Wiedemann and one apiece from Kubis and McConnell.
“We pride ourselves on being a great shooting team,” Kubis added. “Defensively, we were able to shut them down with great team defense, Every girl worked on the help side.”
“I thought Bridget did a great job on (Smith),” Yates said. “She (Smith) can play. She is very talented. But our philosophy was to not to get beat by one girl, so we got a lot of help on her, too, which was helping to make life rough on her.”
Yates said disciplined defense was the key in the second half.
“We were fouling way too much in the first half,” he said. “We were putting them on the line a ton. The girls did a much better job with that in the third and fourth quarters.”
The Vikings ended up converting 16-of-21 free throws while South Elgin was 13-of-16.