Fremd’s too tall an order for Rolling Meadows

Ben Carlson and Fremd proved to be too much for host Rolling Meadows on Tuesday in a Mid-Suburban League boys basketball crossover.

Carlson, who is 6-foot-6, led the Vikings with 18 points, scoring most of them on the inside.

“They didn’t have many big guys, so we tried to go inside,” said Carlson, who missed his first two shots and then converted his final 8, all from the paint.

“We were trying to get good, inside shots. And then go inside out when they collapsed on us.”

It was Rolling Meadows (2-6) that was able to go outside early. Matt Wojcik and Jonny Ungurean (10 points) helped the Mustangs jump out to an early lead.

With Carlson heating up, Fremd (8-0) was able to climb back into the game to lead 14-11 after the first quarter.

Leading 14-13, Fremd forced 5 consecutive turnovers. Meanwhile the Vikings ran off 7 unanswered points on their way to a 13-3 run, with Conner Peters nailing a pair of 3s to end the scoring run with the Vikings up 27-16 with 1:10 left in the first half.

“I was feeling it,” said Peters, who finished with 9 points. “I got my feet set. We had lost a little of our intensity and I helped bring it back.”

Rolling Meadows pulled to within 31-22 early in the second half when Fremd exploded.

Led by Carlson and Riley Glassmann (13 points), Fremd scored 13 consecutive points, forcing 5 turnovers during the stretch to blow the game open.

“I thought we played very well defensively,” said Fremd coach Bob Widlowski, whose team allowed Rolling Meadows to attempt only 21 shots in the game. “We tried to take charges and we really executed well after the first few minutes of the game.”

Rolling Meadows coach Kevin Katovich thought his team played well in the first half.

“I was very happy with the way we played early in the game,” Katovich said. “They kind of took it to us in the the third quarter. They are a good team and that is what good teams do.”

Fremd, which converted 59 percent from the field (23-of-39), got 6 points from Matt Ochoa and 5 points from Pat Benka. Matt Dolan added 8 points for Rolling Meadows while Wojcik and Pat Kramp each had 5 points.

“We really did a good job of getting the ball inside,” Widlowski said. “We have talked about getting better each game and we are playing much better right now than at Thanksgiving.”