Fremd tops Barrington, takes control of MSL West race
Fremd took a major step toward a 25th Mid-Suburban League girls basketball divisional title on Tuesday night in Palatine.
With first place on the line in the MSL West, the Vikings (19-2, 6-0) came away with a 67-51 over Barrington (15-7, 4-2) to take a two-game lead in the MSL West with four to play.
Led in scoring by Ella Todd (17 points), Brynn Eshoo (14), Coco Urlacher (13), Kace Urlacher (10) and Ellie Thompson (8), the Vikings used a 14-0 run at the end of the second quarter and the start of the third to pull away.
"It's great to be on top (of the division) but there's more work to be done," said Fremd coach Dave Yates, who has won 11 West crowns in his previous 16 seasons. "But this is a big step forward."
With the score tied 7-7, Barrington's Sophie Swanson (game-high 33 points, seven 3-pointers) hit back-to-back 3-pointers and added a free throw with 34.6 seconds left in the first quarter to give Barrington its biggest lead at 14-7.
Two 3-pointers in the first three minutes of the second quarter by Todd put Fremd in front 16-14.
Swanson's fifth 3-pointer of the half to give Barrington a 25-23 lead before Fremd closed the half on a 7-0 run, scoring all of the points in the final 50 seconds.
Kace Urlacher drove to the basket and completed a 3-point play with 50.7 seconds left.
Urlacher then batted the ball away from a Fillie near half court to Ella Todd, who then flipped it back ahead to Ulracher for an uncontested layup for a 27-25 lead with 25.4 seconds.
With three seconds left, Eshoo fired home a 3-pointer from the side for the 5-point cushion.
The Vikes started the third quarter with a 7-0 run, getting a layup through defenders from Maddy Fay, a layup by Kace Urlacher which started on Coco Urlacher's steal, and a 3-pointer from Thompson for a 37-25 lead with 6:19 left in the third quarter.
"That was really good to see," Yates said of the Vikings' surge. "We've been preaching to our kids to let the offense come to them."
"I thought we had a good pace to the game," said Kace Urlacher, who also had 6 assists and 3 steals. "That helped along with moving the ball well and finding the right shot, and boxing out well to limit their offensive rebounds."
Fay led the Vikes with 7 rebounds while Todd had 4. Coco Urlacher had 7 steals and 3 rebounds.
Molly O'Riordan added 13 points and Gwen Adler 5 for the Fillies.
"Until the fourth quarter, I felt they (Fremd) won just about every 50/50 ball," said Barrington coach Babbi Barreiro. "And you can't allow them to do that. If we are going to do good things, we have to win those opportunities and we did not.
"Sophie did great but we need other people to score. The biggest thing was defensively we did not clamp down where we needed to, I thought it came down to poor decisions with the basketball on the offensive end and not getting rebounds and 50/50 balls."