Impressive wins for Fremd, Prospect at Deerfield
Fremd's boys basketball team extended its perfect season with a 49-33 victory over Lake Forest on Saturday in a Camp Horseshoe Shootout game at Deerfield.
The Vikings jumped out to a 17-8 lead after the first quarter and stayed in control the rest of the way while improving to 24-0.
It was the third victory of the week for Fremd, and coach Bob Widlowski was pleased to see the common denominator in each contest.
"We got off to a good start, and we were able to maintain our defensive effort at a high level," he said. "We were solid defensively in all three of our games this week, and that's good thing to see at this time of year."
Kyle Sliwa scored a game-high 16 points for Fremd; Shaan Patel had 10, and Luke Schoffstall had 9.
Sliwa, Patel, Schoffstal and Ryan Martin each had at least one 3.
The Mid-Suburban West champs complete divisional play Friday with a home game against Palatine and await either Hersey or Prospect the following week in the MSL title game.
Prospect 54, Niles North 51: Also at Deerfield, the Knights won for the 18th time in 19 games and stayed unbeaten in 2017 by winning a thriller on a special night for senior forward Matt Szuba.
Szuba broke a tie game by making the game's final field goal with less than 20 seconds left.
Niles North then attempted and missed a 3, and Michael Ritchie grabbed the rebound and made a free throw for the game's final point.
Szuba finished with a career-best 17 rebounds - a performance that leaves him as the top rebounder in Prospect history with a total of 586. Kevin Reed finished with 573 in 2009.
Ritchie led Prospect with 17 points and also had 13 rebounds. It's the third straight time he's led the Knights in scoring.
"The way they're playing right now, I'm just really proud of our guys," said Prospect coach John Camardella. "It really has been a different guy coming through for us each night - Antonio Gardner, Grant Zellmer, Grant Whitebloom - they've all played incredibly important roles offensively, along with David Swedura and Frankie Mack.
"Frankie didn't have a great shooting night for us tonight, but he was great defensively."
Prospect (21-4) hosts Hersey on Friday and must win in order to represent the MSL East in the conference title game. That kind of opportunity is welcomed by a team that at one point early this season was 3-3.
Camardella said early losses to Conant, Evanston and Hersey ended up galvanizing a group that had already played plenty together the previous season.
"After those three early losses, we realized the start we had wasn't the start we wanted," Camardella said. "And that gave our guys the opportunity to take a look at the current state and make the effort to define their own future the rest of the way."