In fine form, Fremd turns away Conant
It was showdown night in the Mid-Suburban West for girls basketball.
And Fremd showed why it has been ranked among the state's elite all season.
The No. 3 team in Class 4A took command early over visiting Conant and made sure there was little suspense the rest of the way en route to a 46-28 victory over a Conant team (17-4, 5-2) that has been solid all season.
The five-time defending West champs improved to 19-4 and 7-0 as senior Haley Gorecki tossed in a game-high 21 points with 6 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 steal.
Gorecki and Nireet Dhillon traded 3-pointers to start the game but the Vikes then went on a 6-0 run with a 12-foot pull-up jumper by junior Brianna Lewis, a layup by junior Bryana Hopkins and a fastbreak layup by junior Erin Lenahan (4 rebounds) off an assist from Lewis, who had 2 for the game along with 3 rebounds.
The Vikings were able to maintain the lead despite sophomore Grace Tworek and Hopkins picking up two fouls in the first quarter and seeing limited action the rest of the first half.
"We have a strong bench," said Hopkins who tossed in 10 points with 5 rebounds. "I know they will come in and do a strong job."
"Our two bigs were in foul trouble but Julie Wacker (2 rebounds) came in and gave us some big minutes as well as other kids," said Fremd coach Dave Yates. "We didn't miss a beat. That bodes well for the future."
The present finds Fremd preparing for Schaumburg on Friday night with a chance to clinch at least a tie for the West crown.
"We just played great defense and had a great scouting report,' said Lewis of the big win in which Fremd converted 11 of 15 free throws while Conant was 11-of-21.
"Our free throws were off and offensively we just didn't look like ourselves," said Cougars senior center Haley Anderson. "We came out playing hard and played defense pretty well for the most part. But a big difference was they made their free throws and we didn't."
Dillon, Jorie Wachal and Lexi Zades were top scorers for Conant with 7 points apiece.
"It's just one game out of 30," Anderson added. "We're not going to let it get to us. We've got 11 seniors on this team and this Friday is senior night (vs. Barrington), so that will be a big game."
Cougars coach Deirdre Naughton felt her club did everything it could defensively.
"I thought we did a good job on Gorecki and getting back in transition," she said. "But we missed some shots and free throws, and then they can score in bunches on you."
One of those bunches came in the first five minutes of the third quarter.
The Vikes' lead went from 10 at half to 19 in the first six minutes with Gorecki scoring 8 of her points during the run, which included a couple of coast-to-coast layups.
Tworek had a strong fourth quarter. She finished the game with 4 points, 6 rebounds and 3 blocked shots.
"We knew this was a very big game," Hopkins said. "We wanted to come out strong because we had not been doing that."
"I told our kids that this was as good of execution of our scouting report and game plan that we could have asked," Yates said. "We came to an understanding of what we had to to to beat this team - and this is a very good team."