Fremd beats Rolling Meadows to stay unbeaten

Senior Olivia Hill's layup just before the halftime buzzer sent her Fremd girls basketball team into intermission with a rather comfortable 27-12 lead on Monday night at Rolling Meadows.

When the Vikings returned to the floor for the start of the third quarter, Grace LaBarge really sealed the deal for the Vikings.

The 6-foot 3 junior scored Fremd's first 7 points and the defending Mid-Suburban League champs went on to post a 52-32 triumph over the 2019 MSL East champs.

"Rolling Meadows played really hard," said LaBarge, whose team stayed unbeaten at 3-0 with the nonconference win. "We knew they'd be hungry and want to beat us. We just had to come out and play our game."

LaBarge showed a lot of her game in that stretch where she hit a layup, a 3-pointer and a putback.

"We wanted to come out and take control of the game in the third quarter," said Fremd coach Dave Yates. "And I thought we did. We wanted to get some stops and knock down some shots.

"We were battling a little bit of foul trouble in the first half and we just wanted to get everyone back in the third quarter and that gave us a nice little jump start."

LaBarge finished with 9 points, second only on her team to senior Emily Klaczek who had 12 points with two of the Vikes' five 3-pointers,

Ella Burns (8 points) also had a pair from long distance and Hill added 8 points.

Ruthie Montella, seeing her first action of the season after nursing a lower leg injury, tossed in 7 points.

"It was nice to see Ruthie (started last two years) back out there a couple of minutes," Yates said.

Also getting into the scoring column were teammates Katie Hansen and Liz Prigge.

Senior Susannah Holifield was a big contributor for the Mustangs (1-3), tossing home 10 points along with a pair of 3-pointers.

In all, Meadows had six 3-pointers, including one apiece from Emily Galvan, Alison Sellergren, Sam Elenz and Nicole Davis.

Meadows coach Ryan Kirkorsky also got points from Madi Niedbala, Colleen Cox and Sarah Ingemunson.

"That's (Fremd) a great team," Kirkorsky said. "I was proud of our kids. I thought they did what they were asked and the next step is that we've got to finish plays at a high level. These are the kind of teams we want to be playing early in the season. It's a good gauge for us to see what we need to work on."

Yates said his team still has things to fix.

"But Rolling Meadows is a good team," he added. "They're well coached and I know Ryan needs to get some healthy bodies back. I think they're really going to have a good season."