Benet defeats Fremd in OT in battle of top Illinois teams

Benet's girls basketball players were warned about weekends like this one.

"Coach (Joe Kilbride), he told us at the beginning of the season," Redwings senior forward Allison Forney said. "He was like, 'We have a tough schedule and I think you guys can do it.' And he said, 'If we play hard and compete, we can compete with anyone in the state.'"

The Redwings not only have competed well, they've won. They remained unbeaten with Saturday's 59-50 overtime victory against Fremd, one of the top teams in Illinois.

"It's awesome. It's unbelievable, it's so fun," said Forney, whose team beat East Suburban Catholic Conference rival Marist on Friday night. "That's all I can say. It's so fun."

It didn't look like the Redwings (11-0) were having fun when Fremd senior Olivia Hill scored the first four points of overtime. Benet responded by scoring the next 11 points to put the game out of reach.

"That was just a great high school basketball game, especially for this point in December," Kilbride said. "(Fremd coach Dave Yates) does a great job. They're a great team. And I just thought we had to grind to get it. ..."

"Both teams played really hard, played really well."

For Yates there was a simple answer to what went wrong in overtime.

"I think we ran out of gas," he said. "And it's probably my fault. I played those five kids who finished the game, they played probably the last 10, 12 minutes of the game, and I think we ran out of gas."

Senior Kendall Holmes, a DePaul recruit, got Benet restarted in overtime with a three-point play. Her layup with 2:25 to go gave Benet the lead for good.

"Kendall Holmes made big plays down the stretch in the overtime," Kilbride said. "She made some big shots for us."

Forney stepped to the free-throw line with 1:02 to go and a slim 2-point lead and forgot she was supposed to feel pressure.

"Coach put me in and he put the trust in me," said Forney, who will play at Wisconsin-Oshkosh next season. "I mean, I've always been good at free throws so I knew I could do it. It's just a free throw. It doesn't matter how it's going."

By the time Fremd (7-2) scored again, on Caroline Cochrane's two free throws with 20.5 seconds left, Benet was in control.

"They're an unbelievable team," said Forney, who will play at Wisconsin-Oshkosh next season. "We just kept pushing the whole game."

Yates offered no regrets despite the loss.

"We could go schedule a game where we go beat somebody by 25 points," said Yates, whose only other loss was to Crown Point, the top-ranked team in Indiana. "And I told our kids afterward, this is why we have to play these games, because you learn a lot from these games. You learn a lot about yourself, you learn a lot about what we need to work on.

"We also know that we went into this gym and had them down 4 with the basketball till that offensive foul got called, which was a good call. And we're giving it to the No. 1-ranked team in the state and a nationally ranked basketball team."

Holmes scored 9 of her game-best 21 points in overtime, and Molly Sheehan added 9 points for Benet.

Guard Emily Klaczek led Fremd with 17 points, Grace LaBarge scored 11 and Hill had 10.