Boys Basketball: Downers South’s Greg Garro comes alive in fourth, downs Fremd

Updated: January 9, 2012 9:56PM

Downers South center Greg Garro was a non-factor for the first three quarters of Monday night’s nonconference game against Fremd, attempting no shots and getting only two rebounds.

But the 6-6 senior came alive in the fourth quarter, scoring all of his career-high 11 points to help the Mustangs (11-2) rally from a 10-point deficit and beat Fremd 66-55 in Downers Grove.

“I think I let the game come to me, so then I see where my opportunities are,” Garro said. “I started crashing the boards and then the rebounds started falling my way.”

Fremd (10-7) led by three at halftime and extended the cushion to 42-32 on a three-pointer by Riley Glassmann with 3:00 left in the third quarter before Jamall Millison and Jerron Wilbut started Downers South’s comeback.

Millison closed the third quarter by hitting the third of his four treys to cut the gap to 44-40 and Garro scored his first points on the game on a three-point with 6:22 remaining in the fourth quarter.

A putback by Garro at the 4:47 mark put the Mustangs up 50-49 and the hosts would never trail again. Garro added two free throws following a turnover and later scored on fast-break layups off feeds from Kevin Honn and Wilbut.

“In the fourth quarter they were pressuring a lot so I would just cut and my teammates would find me,” Garro said. “The first half we were sleeping. Then in the fourth quarter we stepped it up, picked up our defensive pressure, made them turn the ball over and then we converted on offense.”

Millison scored a game-high 21 points, sinking his last six shots, including a dunk at the closing buzzer, while Wilbut added 17 points and three steals despite picking up two early fouls after opening the contest with a thunderous reverse jam. Honn and Jordan Cannon added six points each for the Mustangs.

“I thought our first half was about as bad as we’ve played in two years,” Downers South coach Jay Baum said. “I don’t want to get into all of the things that went wrong. It was not pretty.

“We came out in the third quarter and we didn’t play defense. Fourth quarter we handled the ball and played defense and didn’t foul. We didn’t allow them to get to the line and then we made our free throws, so it was a good team win.”

Glassmann tallied 16 points for Fremd, which went 12-for-12 from the line, though only two of those free throws came in the second half. Garrett Peters added 12 points and Sean Benka had 11 for the Vikings.

“That was the best we’ve played so far this season,” Fremd coach Bob Widlowski said. “I thought we really competed tonight. I really thought we put ourselves in a good situation to win the game and then when they got the lead they did a good job of finishing down the stretch.

“They’re obviously a very nice team and we’re disappointed that we didn’t walk out of here with a win tonight.”

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