Schoo's career night lifts Schaumburg over Fremd

Schaumburg's Jared Schoo put his best foot forward Thursday.

Schoo poured in a career-high 21 points and had 10 rebounds to lead Schaumburg past Fremd 45-35 in a Mid-Suburban West boys basketball game in Schaumburg.

"I took what came to me," said Schoo, a senior who converted 9-of-10 from the free-throw line. I got the ball on the block and tried to finish and get fouls and get to the free-throw line."

With the win, Schaumburg (19-3, 5-1) stayed even with Palatine, which beat Hoffman Estates, in the race in the MSL West. Fremd (13-10), the defending MSL West and conference champion, fell two games back of both teams with three conference games remaining.

"It is always hard-fought with Fremd," Schaumburg coach Wade Heisler said. "When you win as much as they have, you have winning habits. I thought we came out not our usual and that had a lot to do with them. But anytime you beat Fremd, you are excited."

Fremd used some pressure defense and took a 23-12 lead over the Saxons on a basket by Jake Schoffstall with 2:43 left in the first half.

Schaumburg tried to get the ball down low to 6-foot-8 Chris Hodges, who finished with 4 points. But the Saxons had difficulty thanks to the defensive play of 6-foot-4, 290-pound Jack Walsh, who kept the Wisconsin verbal commit off the block.

Schaumburg and Schoo recognized this and began running plays for Schoo. His play kept the Saxons in the game and then Schaumburg erupted with six consecutive points to pull to 23-18 at the break.

"Its great having a guy like Chris in the lineup," Schoo said. "Because he takes up a lot of attention. That opens up a lot of positions for a lot of other guys and I just capitalized on that tonight"

Heisler said he has liked the way Schoo has stepped into his role this season.

"Jared was incredibly good tonight and he has been incredibly good this season," Heisler said. "He just cares about winning. He doesn't care about scoring. Whatever it takes, he just wants to win games and he plays that way. It is a huge advantage when you have kids like that."

Schaumburg continued that type of play, running off seven straight points to begin the second half and pulled ahead 25-23 on a basket by Vaurice Patterson.

"We knew we had to step up," said Patterson, who finished with 12 points, including a pair of 3-pointers. "We knew they were going to be physical and we had to come together."

The teams traded leads with Schaumburg taking a 31-30 advantage into the final quarter.

The Saxons led 33-31 when they rattled off eight consecutive points to surge ahead 41-31 with 1:50 to play on a basket by Schoo. Fremd never got closer than 6 points from there.

"We got stuck on a couple of numbers tonight," said Fremd coach Bob Widlowski, whose team shot just 2-of-17 from outside the arc. "We played very hard, especially in the first half. But we needed to play like that for four quarters against this team tonight."

Schoffstall led Fremd with 10 points while Walsh had 8 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals and block. Max Wexley also had 8 points.