Walsh helps Fremd power past Conant
The future is on the football field for Fremd's Jack Walsh. The 6-foot-4 senior will be playing guard for the Vikings when the football season starts. He will then ply his trade at the University of Wyoming.
Right now Walsh is making his presence felt under the basket.
Walsh helped lead a fourth-quarter Fremd comeback as the Vikings beat Conant 57-44 in a Mid-Suburban West boys basketball game in Hoffman Estates Friday night.
Conant took a 39-38 lead at the end of the third quarter thanks to a 25-7 run after trailing 31-14 at the halftime break.
"They sped up their offense and it took us out of ours," said Walsh. "We had to do something to get back in the game. They had us playing at their pace."
Walsh scored the go-ahead basket with 7:21 left in the game for a lead that the Vikings would not relinquish.
Walsh converted an offensive rebound on a missed free throw then scored on a nifty assist from Chris Smyros. Eli Schoffstall scored his team's final 5 points in a 14-0 run to take a 52-39 lead with 2:07 left in the game.
"Look at the balance we had tonight," said Fremd coach Bob Widlowski. "Schoffstall had 19, Smyros had 17 and Walsh 12. When you have scoring like that it's hard to guard us. We've made big steps in our offense since game one.
"Walsh had a pretty good second half for us. He missed a few shots early but he responded and was a force down the stretch."
"I'm more comfortable this year," said Walsh, who also had 7 rebounds. "Last year due to some injuries I had to step in right away. It took me a few weeks to get it going. This year I started right off the bat and it's been fun."
"Our execution on offense was good in the first half and our defense was rock solid," said Widlowski. "We got away from our execution in the third quarter and they made the run. We kept our composure and finished with a 19-5 fourth quarter."
Despite falling to 1-2 Conant coach Jim Maley was pleased with his team's second half effort.
"We came out in the second half and played the way I think we can," said Maley. "We didn't compete well in the first half. We missed shots (6-for-19) and because of that we didn't play well on defense. We took that 39-38 lead on Devon Ellis' putback basket but then we started the fourth quarter with a turnover and it kind of snowballed."
Sean Beckman played a strong game for the Cougars with 14 points and 5 rebounds. Ellis added 12 points and 7 rebounds. Colin Francia scored all of his 7 points in the third quarter 21-0 run that covered the last 5:27 of the quarter.