Fremd keeps pace in riveting West race

The latest episode of "How The West Was Won" supplied another entertaining installment of high school basketball drama on Friday.

Entering Week 8 of the Mid-Suburban West slate, four of the conference's top six were with 1 game of the division lead.

Fremd was one of those teams, in a three-way tie for second as the night began.

Adding to the suspense was the early state of affairs against visiting Schaumburg, as the Vikings trailed 14-4 a couple of minutes into the second quarter and in real need of a decisive plot twist.

Fremd got it with a 9-2 finish to that second quarter which left it down 3 at the half. The spurt set the stage for a 13-4 third-quarter advantage that paved the way to a 42-31 victory.

The Fremd win, coupled by wins for Palatine and Barrington, keeps the Vikings' repeat title hopes alive. Barrington is 6-2, with Fremd and Palatine both 5-3.

Fremd will play at Palatine and at Barrington the next two Fridays.

"It was a hard-fought game," Fremd coach Bob Widlowski said. "Schaumburg came to play tonight, and they gave us a rough time early. But what we started to do was focus on getting stops on defense while slowly chipping away on offense."

The home team (13-8 overall) began its comeback with a scoop to the hoop by Luke Seidel. The 5-foot-10 junior followed with the first 2 of his 8 free throws, pulling Fremd within 14-8 with 3:22 left until halftime.

Fellow junior guard John Smyros added a free throw and layup to get the Vikings within 14-11 at the 2:44 mark. A Ryan Martin bucket inside 64 seconds later left Fremd down 16-13 at the break, setting up the game-changing third period.

A bucket from Chris Hodges (game-high 18 points) gave the Saxons (8-15, 2-6) their last lead of the evening at 18-13 half a minute into the third quarter.

Nine straight points from Seidel put Fremd ahead to stay at 22-18. The Saxons got no closer than 22-20 on an inside hoop by Hodges.

At that point, Seidel started to feel the tide turning in Fremd's favor.

"We started to gain confidence once we got the lead. We kept our discipline on both offense and defense, and it started to show."

Any hopes of a Schaumburg comeback were dashed by a 14-5 Viking run that featured 10 of Martin's 14 points and got Fremd ahead 36-25 with 2:10 remaining.

Over the game's final 22 minutes, Fremd held Schaumburg to 8-for-27 shooting.

Outside of Hodges going 9-for-12 for the game, the rest of the Saxons went just 6-for-28 from the floor, leaving assistant coach Devin Neill to say one word as he was leaving the Fremd fieldhouse: "Frustrating."

"I think that our defense got us going," Seidel said. "We started to have better spacing on the offensive side and it started to open things up."

Widlowski felt taking the time to make the extra pass made a huge difference in Fremd's comeback.

"That was the key, in my opinion," Widlowski said. "We started to execute. As a result we were doing a better job of finding the open man, like the time we found Luke for that 3 in the third."

Before returning to MSL West play Friday, both teams will face Upstate Eight Valley contender South Elgin. Fremd hosts the Storm for its Senior Day on Saturday afternoon, while Schaumburg will visit South Elgin on Tuesday night.