Fremd following winning plan
Fremd’s boys basketball team has a plan for this season.
“We are focused as a team,” said Fremd guard Riley Glassmann. “We are going to prepare for each team one at a time, and play them one at a time.”
The Vikings came out with aggressive defense and some hot shooting in scattering the host Fenton Bison 68-20 in the second round of 28th annual Chuck Mitchell Tournament on Tuesday night.
Ben Carlson, the Vikings’ 6-foot 6 senior center, put Fremd on the right track with an offensive rebound basket and a 3-pointer in the game’s first 35 seconds. The 0-2 Bison made it 5-2 on Bradley Leffew’s basket with 6:55 left in the first quarter before the 2-0 Vikings went on a 11-0 run to lead 16-2 with 3:34 left in the quarter. Leffew led Fenton with 6 points.
By quarter’s end the score was 28-8 and Fremd extended the lead to 44-11 at halftime.
Glassmann led the Vikings with 14 points. Carlson had 11 points and 5 rebounds, and Conner Peters also scored 11 points.
“Our big men ran the floor well,” said Fremd coach Bob Widlowski. “It just created a mismatch problem for them. We showed good effort in our first two games. What we have to do now is work on our execution at both ends of the floor. Today we boxed out well. We just want to get better each game.”
Carlson worked hard over the summer to improve his game at AAU camp in Deerfield and it has produced positive results.
“I really worked on by skill game a lot during the summer,” said Carlson. “I feel more confident in my abilities. I think I can score from the inside better, and if necessary, from the outside. We’re taking some nice steps as a team. We started out slow against Mather but tonight our defense got us going.”
The Vikings outrebounded the Bisons 29-10 and outshot them 46 percent to 30 percent.
Even though Fenton lost, assistant coach Mark Farrell — a former Fremd football player, subbing for head coach Joshua Payton, who is recovering from surgery — some positives.
“In our first game we committed 26 turnovers in the first half. Today we had 17 for the game,” said Farrell. “We need to set better screens. Fremd’s defense just kept pushing us away from the basket. We need to get closer to the basket to score.”