Fremd tops Whitney Young in OT, returns to title game
NORMAL - Experience on the big stage paid off for the Fremd girls basketball team Friday night at Redbird Arena.
Down by 10 points to No. 2-ranked Whitney Young early in the third quarter, the top-ranked Vikings weathered the storm, chipped away and eventually came away with a 47-40 overtime win in the Class 4A state semifinals.
Fremd (30-2) will play for a state championship for the second straight year at 8:15 p.m. Saturday against, once again, Benet Academy. The Vikings lost to Benet in last year's title game.
"I'm just very proud of these girls," said Fremd coach Dave Yates. "We've been in that situation before - we've been down at halftime, and at halftime tonight we just talked about calming down a little. We composed ourselves and came out and chipped away."
The Vikings also took a more aggressive approach in the second half, getting the ball into the paint, something they did little of in the first half when they trailed 14-2 early and 23-15 at halftime after making just 6 of 21 field goal attempts.
That turned around in the second half, mostly through the efforts of 6-foot-2 senior Bryana Hopkins.
After being held scoreless on 0-for-3 shooting in the first 16 minutes, the Northwestern recruit went 4 of 5 in the second half and finished with a game-high 14 points as the Vikings came back to finish 14-of-34 shooting from the field.
"We've been in the state championship game before and we've been in this position before, so we knew when we got down we just had to stay composed," said Hopkins, who also had 6 rebounds.
Trailing 27-17 after Young's Isabelle Springola scored with 6:24 left in the third quarter, Fremd's comeback began.
Hopkins made 2 free throws before senior Erin Lenahan and junior Grace Tworek each scored to make it a 27-23 game.
Young (27-6) forged ahead 31-23 on a free throw and then a 3-pointer out of a TV timeout from Ohio State recruit Kiara Lewis.
But Fremd closed the third quarter on a 9-3 run, with Hopkins scoring the Vikings' final 7 points of the period to go into the fourth quarter down 34-32.
"I thought once we got it down to 3, 4, 5 we started believing," Yates said.
The fourth quarter was a defensive struggle the whole way with Fremd winning the battle.
The Vikings took their first lead of the game at 37-36 on Hopkins' layup off a Lenahan feed with 4:59 left in regulation.
Things ground to a halt at that point as neither team scored again until Fremd senior Brianna Lewis made 1 of 2 free throws with 1:11 left for a 38-36 lead.
But Kiara Lewis made 2 free throws with 57 seconds and neither team could manage to score on their final possessions to send the game to overtime.
The extra session was all Fremd, and it started with a huge 3-pointer from Tworek 20 seconds into the OT period.
"I knew we'd have to get some motivation to start the overtime and hitting that 3-pointer got us going," said Tworek, who finished with 9 points and 9 rebounds.
Brianna Lewis made 2 free throws with 2:02 to play to make it a 43-38 game.
Young's Lewis hit 2 free throws at 1:43 but those were the Dolphins' final points.
Despite going just 4-for-12 from the line in the final 1:33, the Vikings consistently pulled down offensive rebounds to limit Young's chances of coming back.
"We had a couple mishaps on defense where we gave them easy looks and offensively we just didn't finish," said Young coach Corry Irvin. "At the end I thought we still had an opportunity. They missed 8 free throws and we didn't rebound. We kind of gave it to them at the end."
Brianna Lewis scored 13 points for Fremd but her greatest contribution was on defense where she teamed with Lenahan to hold Kiara Lewis, who scored 44 points in Young's supersectional win, to just 11 on Friday on 2-of-14 shooting.
"I like playing defense," Brianna Lewis said. "I just did it for the team and the results say it all. I kind of do the same moves as her so I know how to guard it."
The Vikings also got a huge lift in the second quarter from senior Amanda McCartney, who nailed back-to-back 3-pointers from the same spot on the right wing 25 seconds apart when the Vikings had fallen behind 21-9.
"The first time I shot I was pretty nervous," McCartney said. "But once I hit it I felt confident and then I went back to that spot. I like that spot on the wing."
"Those were huge," Yates said. "Once those went in we started gaining some confidence."
Springola led Young, which was seeking its fourth state title under Irvin, with 13 points.