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Fremd gets to work, bounces Barrington

It was denim night at Fremd on Friday.

And even though the Vikings' players were dressed in white, they still had their work clothes on.

Fremd came up with a solid defensive effort, especially in the first half, to knock off Barrington 57-44.

"That is the way we want to play basketball," Fremd coach Bob Widlowski said. "I thought we played very well defensively, we shared the ball and we executed down the stretch."

Really executing for Fremd was Bryce Hopkins. The junior forward had a career night with 29 points, 7 rebounds and blocked 4 shots.

"I was really feeling it tonight," Hopkins said. "They kept getting me the ball and it is great they had confidence in me. I just kept getting into the lane and finishing and finishing."

Fremd (10-7, 3-2) came up with some Widlowski special sauce on defense, especially in the first half. The Vikings forced 8 first-half turnovers and limited Barrington to just 3-for-14 from the field as Fremd built a 25-12 lead at the break.

"They (Barrington) have a lot of weapons," Widlowski said. "And to hold them to 12 points in a half is a very, very good effort. We charted over 20 deflections in the first half. That was a sign of how hard we were playing."

Fremd guards Matt Gumularz and Luke Seidel led the charge defensively for the Vikings in their man-to-man defense that smothered Barrington.

"We well well prepared tonight," Gumularz said. "We played solid on defense and that's what we did."

Seidel said that this is the way that the Fremd defense needs to play.

"I thought we just locked down on defense," Seidel said. "We know our roles and we just stopped our man and made sure that help side was there."

Barrington (12-4, 3-2) sped up the pace in the second half, and it got the Broncos back into the game.

Trailing 33-17 with 5:12 left in the third quarter, the Broncos made their move. Jake Parsons ignited an 11-0 run that was punctuated by a putback by Jack Reinhard to cut the deficit to 33-28 with 2:28 left in the third quarter.

Barrington got within 35-31 less than a minute later on pair of free throws by Jason Boock.

Fremd regrouped thanks to Hopkins and Isiah Turner (8 points). Ryan Martin nailed a 3 to complete a 7-0 run by the Vikings as they led 45-33 with 6:35 to play. Barrington never got closer than 6 from there.

"We have been struggling ," said Martin, who finished with 11 points, 7 of which came in the fourth quarter. "But we fought through it. All these games we lost, we have been right there. The last time we had this kind of intensity was the Palatine game. I thought we played like that tonight."

Barrington was led by Anthony Spann (15 points), Boock (12), Reinhard (9) and Parsons (7).

"They came out and took it to us in the first half," Barrington coach Bryan Tucker said. "I like how we fought in the second half. It is too bad we did not have that for 4 quarters."

With Fremd's victory over Barrington, along with Schaumburg's win at Palatine and Conant's win over Hoffman Estates, the MSL West is completely up for grabs. With the conference season half over, Fremd, Barrington, Palatine and Conant are each 3-2, with Schaumburg 2-3 and Hoffman 1-4.

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