Familiar foes Fremd, Prospect meet for MSL title
This Mid-Suburban League boys basketball title game has been six years in the making.
Both West champion Fremd and East champion Prospect, who will meet Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the Jean Walker Field House at Prospect for the MSL title, trace their championship runs back to their respective feeder teams when their current group of seniors were in seventh grade.
"It has been that way for five, six years now," Prospect coach John Camardella said. "We knew we would have a chance with this group coming in. Our feeder program did an incredible job moving guys around and finding the right players for the right spots."
In Palatine, Fremd coach Bob Widlowski had the same experience with his group.
"We have kept on an eye on this group for a while now," Widlowski said. "And we knew they would be something special.
"They have played together so long and they anticipate what each other can do."
Both Fremd (25-0) and Prospect (22-4) have been on a roll all season.
Fremd got off to great start this year, winning the Mundelein Thanksgiving tournament and then the Wheeling Hardwood Classic, beating Notre Dame for the second time in 13 days. The Vikings won the West by beating Conant twice, including a 42-41 win a 4-point play by Kyle Sliwa.
"It was one of our goals to get to the MSL title game," Widlowski said. "Our guys are looking forward to the challenge."
Prospect has won 14 in a row and has scored under 50 points just once during that span.
They Knights have not lost since the quarterfinals of the Hardwood Classic, to a very solid Waukegan team. The Knights stumbled twice in the opening week of the season, losing to Conant and Evanston. Prospect also lost in overtime to Hersey.
The Knights have come back in the second half of this year and avenged two of those losses, beating Conant in overtime and dropping Hersey last week to claim the East title.
"We are playing extremely efficient basketball right now," Camardella said. "We are doing lots of things well right now."
The teams are almost mirror images of each other.
Both teams are senior-dominated. Fremd is averaging 58 points while allowing 38. Prospect is averaging 60 while allowing 50.
Both teams rely on one of their guards for most of their scoring, have a big man who can clean up on the boards and a solid point guard to run the offense.
Fremd's Kyle Sliwa is averaging 18 points per game while Frankie Mack is averaging 17.4 points per game. Both are three-year starters.
On the boards, 6-foot-7 Brian Dompke is averaging just over 8 rebounds for Fremd while 6-6 Matt Szuba is just under 10 rebounds per game. The teams have solid point guards with Fremd's Luke Schoffstall and Prospect's David Swedura.
Both teams also boast role players who have the ability to score or come up with the big play.
For Fremd it is Shaan Patel and Ryan Martin, while the Knights will counter with Michael Ritchie and Antonio Gardner.
Even the team's benches look similar, with Fremd get key contributions from Bryce Hopkins, Mark Kating and Austin Schwantz and Prospect from Grant Zellmer, Grant Whitebloom and Jonathan Raupp.
"There are a lot of commonalities in both teams," Camardella said. "The number one thing you see in both teams is balance offensively and a little bit of tenacity on defense. Top to bottom, these are two deep, solid, high school basketball teams."
Widlowski is looking forward to bringing his team to Prospect.
"They have a raucous crowd and it will be an intense atmosphere," Widlowski said. "We are anticipating it to be a great game."
Prospect has won or shared the MSL East title in eight of the last 10 years. The Knights won the overall MSL title in 2009 and 2011.
Prospect lost last year to Conant by 6 and dropped its other three most recent appearances by 3 points - including the 2014 game when it was beaten by Fremd, which was undefeated at the time.